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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22705084">The Prarie Intern</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Perfectlove990/pseuds/Perfectlove990'>Perfectlove990</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Total Drama (Cartoon)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, Drama, F/M, Feral Behavior, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 12:40:50</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>22,475</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22705084</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Perfectlove990/pseuds/Perfectlove990</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>After finally hospitalizing Ezekiel, Chris is still found to be bitter at him for nearly killing him. In exchange of dropping the charges, Chris forces Ezekiel to be his new intern for the next season. AU to Pahkitew Island.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Jasmine/Shawn (Total Drama)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>20</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Back to Normal..ish</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Orginally posted from Fanfiction.net. Following four chapters would be updated in the following weeks, until work is re-updated.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Waking up from what seemed to be the best sleep he had in ages, the boy squinted his eyes. Something didn’t seem right, where were all the mutant animals, the crappy sand, and his personal hideout. Instead he woke up in a room inside of a bed. This room had monitors and a bunch of equipment he didn’t know anything about.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He instantly panic at the sight, he brought his knees up to his chest and began to shake. Whatever cruel joke they were going for to make him believe something good was happening wasn’t funny. But then he stare at his hands that were holding his knees, they were pale green, but not the shade of green from before. Also he then looked down at himself, he wasn’t wearing the torn up hoodie like before, but a flimsy white gown. Maybe this wasn’t some fever dream his diseased mind conjured up.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His thoughts were interrupted when someone opened the door. The man was wearing a lab coat and was holding a clipboard in his hands. The delusion his mind was spouting seemed too good to be true, but he knew better than to give into sick fantasies. The man approached him, patting him on the shoulder and then began to say something.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well Ezekiel, looks like you’re finally up. You should consider yourself very lucky, the results say here you shouldn’t even had a small recovery for several years, but over these two months, you recovered tremendously. You’re gaining color back to your skin and your hair is starting to grow back.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Lucky, lucky his ass. Would someone called losing all sight of sanity and rationally lucky. Would being lucky meant that you were seen as a wild animal by everyone. Was it lucky to have everyone you knew hated you so much that they didn’t even care about your own damn condition. Yeah, he was anything but lucky. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Zeke, than began to wonder, who put him in this hospital. It obviously wasn’t himself, as he would had no mind to do so. It probably wasn’t one of the contestants, they didn’t even gave a shit about him when he tried to kill Chris. So who was it?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That sociopath came into the room and it all clicked for him. Why him, anyone but him. Get that monster away from Zeke as soon as possible, he had nothing to thanked him for.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hey Ezekiel, how you doing”, like you really wanted to know. “Great, okay. So you’re probably wondering why you’re in this hospital and not out scavenging in the wild,” just some sadistic mental trick he supposed. “Yeah so around like six months ago, I sent a couple interns to Boney Island to find any understory materials to use for next season and they came across you in the fun zone. You attacked them a little, but only one was severely injured, not too shabby if I say so myself”, of course Chris would find a victory in the injured. “So they decided to tranquilized you for some reason and called a hospital. Don’t really know why, guess that they felt sorry for you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Not a shock that Chris couldn’t even understand the concept of empathy, if it was up to him he would’ve let Zeke rot for the rest of his life. Wait did he said six months, he was asleep for half a year. Guess it was for the best, who knows what horrific treatments he been put under since then.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So they went to have me pay for your entire treatment, because apparently I was the cause of your suffering. Originally I refused at all cost, until the producers said it would boost positive reception in my favor. After the negative reception of All Stars, I needed all the positive reception I could get to be able to host another season.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>How predictable, only saving his skin for a dumb PR stunt. Chris deserved all the negative attention he was given, show the whole world his true colors under his “charismatic” host identity he had for way too long.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ezekiel wanted to use this time to yell at Chris Mclean, he wanted to say everything that has been on his mind about that ass since World Tour. About his pain of being thrown out of the plane, his humiliation of being used for challenges, and how he was just treated as a wild animal since then. But he didn’t know if he even could, not out of conscience, but due to the fact that he hasn’t used his voice in so long he didn’t even know if he still had one left. Slowly he took a deep breath and went to say his first words since turning feral.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I hate you”, his voice croaked out in a raspy tone. Ezekiel amazed himself on how little he had to say. He been waiting to curse him out for a long time now and all he could say was the obvious. Those three measly words were an understatement to say the least and it didn’t gave the former feral boy any sense of satisfaction oppose to what a long, overdue rant would’ve done.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, glad to hear it. So now that you’re finally up, I think its time for me to give you a little special surprise I came up with”, Chris proceed to throw a small box onto Ezekiel’s lap. Whatever surprise he was talking about, the parrie boy knew it wasn’t going to be a pleasant one. He carefully opened the box and instead of something jumping out of it, inside was just a shirt, a red buttoned down shirt.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What’s the catch, eh”, Ezekiel said in an grouchy tone. “Wow, guess you’re smarter than you look. So my little catch is that is going to be your intern shirt for when next season starts in two weeks.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why after everything you put me through, you think I would ever intern for your death traps you call a show”, in that small moment Ezekiel thought every urge just to slap that asshole to the ground, but kept enough cool to prevent doing so. “Good question Zeke. Well to say that this is your only other choice than going to court against me for trying to kill me last season. Unless you have connections with Courtney, there’s very little chance of you getting a lawyer good enough to win against mine”.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>After everything he put him through, he had the nerve to go there. To send the prairie boy to court and have him arrested for attempted murder. Truly shows how much of a hypocrite he was considering the amount of times he tried to kill his own contestants.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why you want to make me an intern anyway, wouldn’t you want me away as far as possible”, Ezekiel was clearly speaking for his own benefit, he knew that being an intern would always been worse than being a contestant. “Well I was considering a restraining order first, but I thought this would be a bit more fun for me”, Chris let out a laugh at his expense. “I came up with the idea when reminiscing about season 4, I remember making this girl an intern after she tried to sneak back on the show, kinda like you did. I don’t remember her name though, something that starts with a D, I think. Well anyway I thought this would be a perfect way to get payback on you”. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ezekiel didn’t even bothering asking on the payback part, it would been a waste of breathe to even bother. Whatever logic Chris was trying to spew, it was all going to be bullshit anyway you look at it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Fine, I give in, I’ll be your stupid intern. I’ll be your stupid intern just so you can torture me for a couple weeks and I’ll never have to see your dumbass ever again, eh. Only under one condition, before I start you have to send me back to the farm for a week so I can see my Ma and Pa again,” Ezekiel folded his arms trying to show intimidation, if he was going to be stuck in this bad deal he might as well get one good thing out of it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Chris put his fingers to his chin and stroked it for a couple moments. Ezekiel almost immediately regretted asking his request, but let Chris said something before turning back on what he said. Before Chris respond he gave the prairie boy an evil smirk and Ezekiel than came to regret asking. “Sure, its the least I can do for you. I’ll let you see your parents, the ones who abandoned you in the wild and never bother looking for you”, Chris gave a chuckle at that sentence.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Upon hearing that, Ezekiel’s blood began to boil. He could bet that either Chris or one of the producers had something about his parents never coming for him. The fact he is using mind games when the thing that angered him the most, fuck you Chris.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And as an added bonus, I will give you first class round trip tickets back home on a plane, considering that you live like five hours from here.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The word ‘plane’ echoed back in his mind. That word single handedly triggered memories back from World Tour. Specifically when he was stuck on the tail after being kicked off the second time. Absentmindedly, Ezekiel grabbed the center of his chest and started panting heavily with tears spouting out of his eyes. Not a plane, not a plane, anything but a plane.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Chris could only stare at him and the tension by talking. “So, I’ll go set that up. I’ll tell the doctor to release you tomorrow and you’ll be sent back to your family. Bye,” with that Chris has left the room, leaving the prairie boy to himself curled up in a ball.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Honestly after that Ezekiel wished he never woke up. All that sociopath was going to do was make his life an even worse Hell than it already was. He didn’t even care for the money anymore, chasing after it only made things worse for him. All he wanted was to go back home, but that had a catch to it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ezekiel started to calmy whistle to himself, it let him drift back to sleep. The sleep was going to be the only peaceful thing for him within the next few weeks, so he might as well enjoy it.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Home's Where the Safety at</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Here's the second chapter. If you read both this and the fanfiction.net version, you'll notice some minor grammar edits, nothing that would change the story, though.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There was only another hour left until boarding that death trap. Something he hoped he would never have to get back on every again. But it seem life didn’t have it in his favor now.</p>
<p>The prairie boy was sitting in the lobby right by a window. Due to the airport being packed, there weren’t many seats or else he would’ve sat somewhere as far away from them as possible. Just looking at the planes go by was making him feel queasy. The noise of everyone chattering didn’t help either, everything there was just making him feel anxious.</p>
<p>While everything there was making feel sick, it wasn’t his biggest worry. His actual worry stem from what Chris said yesterday, despite knowing everything that comes out of his mouth is bullshit, it didn’t prevent his words from getting inside of his head. What if his parents really didn’t care about what happened to him, he hadn’t heard anything about them searching for him.</p>
<p>Plausible reasons to why they didn’t search for him was that they were too poor to leave the farm unattended. Ezekiel’s family weren’t particularly rich to begin with, so them leaving the farm for long period of months would’ve ruined them financially. Still didn’t hurt any less for him even if that was the reason, it was understandable but painful.</p>
<p>After some time of getting lost in his thoughts, he was brought back to reality from the sound of the loudspeaker. “Attention: Flight A15 is now ready to board, Flight A15 is now ready to board”, the flight attendant repeated in the loudspeaker. With that, Ezekiel walked up showed his boarding pass and temporary ID, the studio gave him one a few hours ago, and boarded onto the plane.</p>
<p>Ezekiel walked all the way to the back until he reached the first class department. The seats there were huge, there was a full stocked bar in the back, and a classy bathroom at the side. Just looking at this made him feel completely out of place, the clothes he was wearing had him stick out even worse. Everyone else was wearing nice enough clothing, nothing too fancy. However, Ezekiel was wearing the red intern shirt, baggy sweatpants (they apparently had to cut off his clothing in the hospital), and his mountain boats, along with his pale green skin and thinning hair, he looked more like a circus show act then someone whose travels first class.</p>
<p>He took a seat in the chair and it surprisingly felt extremely comfy. Sitting in those seats made him feel relaxed and let the prairie boy almost forget about his troubles. It was still lingering in his head, but much less than an hour before. This what it must felt like for everyone who was sitting first class back in World Tour. Feeling a bit more relaxed he started to drift off to sleep.</p>
<hr/>
<p>It was the first day of World Tour all over again, but only something different this time. This time the prairie boy was already feral to begin with, he had green skin, no hair, and beating red eyes. He stood on his hind legs and hanged his tongue out with acid saliva dripping off of it.</p>
<p>He stood like a dog trying hard to impress his owner, with his hind legs up and his arms arching to his chest and his hands making a claw formation. Despite what the nature of feral people were, this prairie boy looked liked he was trying to please the people around him instead of trying to attack them senselessly.</p>
<p>This however still frightened the surrounding teenagers and the other man that was with him. The feral boy showed no signs of violence or malice and only wanted to come with them on their journey, but to no avail. Instead of showing kindness to him, the other teens started to shout things like, “go away you ugly freak” and “nobody wants you here”. They began to throw things such as rocks at him to send this deformed freak of nature the message that he wasn’t wanted around.</p>
<p>The feral boy started to whimper at the mean teens. He just wanted to come along with them, it wasn’t too much to ask, was it? He made one final attempt to win them over by trying to hug the girl wearing a blue hoodie and a blonde ponytail, but she just slapped him instead and quickly board onto the plane.</p>
<p>With being physically and verbally abused by them, the feral boy started to viciously grow. He stuck out his teeth to the kids and started to hiss. Before they could shoo him away, he started to attack the teens. First he went and pounce on this very muscular teen biting him all over the body, when he was done with him, there were bite marks going up and down the chest.</p>
<p>His next victim was some Latino boy. Instead of going for the chest area, he decided that the legs would be the feral boy’s target. He went and took a huge bite right into his knee cap, knocking the Latino over. He then proceeded to scratch them out into oblivion, to the point where they became numb with blood dripping out. The others tried to help him out, but their fear of the feral boy got the best of them.</p>
<p>His last victim was the Hispanic girl. He jumped on her, forcing her to the ground. When they on the ground, he immediately went for the hair, pulling it out strand by strand. He pulled so hard you could actually hearing the ripping of it if you were up close enough. Her punk boyfriend with the green mohawk tried to pull him off of her, but the punk’s strength was no match the feral boy’s determination. After he was done with her, all her hair expect what was on the back of her head were in the hands of the feral boy.</p>
<p>Everyone else tried to make the wise decision of boarding the plane before they all could be attacked. The host was trying to close the door as fast as he could, but unfortunately everyone, the feral boy wasn’t aiming towards the door. Instead he jumped onto the back of the plane and busted open a grate leading inside to the cockpit.</p>
<p>When inside, he disguised himself among the shadows and quietly shuffled his body along the walls to avoid being caught. He made himself invisible among the teens who were hovering in fear over what happened. The feral boy was right outside of the captain’s corner when he slammed his body onto the door, jumped inside and…...</p>
<hr/>
<p>The prairie boy’s body jolted right out of the chair the moment he woke up. He let out an absent minded scream, directing everyone’s attention right on him. All the passengers gave him a pissed off look, like he just insulted them all. With all the unwanted attention attracted to him, he quickly ran into the bathroom, the one place where he could have some privacy on that plane.</p>
<p>The prairie boy turned the faucet and began to splash cold water onto his face. It definitely felt refreshing to the skin and it started to cool him down. He took a look into the mirror and saw his cheeks blushing red onto the green skin, making him look like an ugly Christmas tree.</p>
<p>That nightmare just felt too real to just be something in his mind. The prairie boy somehow felt every rock thrown, the harsh wind pushing down on his body, and as if all the words said to him could punch him in the gut over and over.</p>
<p>Ezekiel finally managed to calm himself down when the after sitting in the bathroom for a little over 15 minutes when he heard a knock on the door. The prairie boy opened the door, but didn’t bother looking the man in the face. He was already embarrassed enough, he didn’t have a reason to add on to that. He carefully went back to his seat and just waited until the ride was over.</p>
<hr/>
<p>Another two hours went by and he was finally off the plane, just being able to survive the entire ride was an achievement in itself for him. When he reached the lobby he started to look out for the person who was picking him up. The studio told him that they were sending one of their drivers to pick him up as soon as he landed. After 10 minutes of wandering, he finally found a person with a sign reading his name.</p>
<p>The prairie boy walked up to the man and they silently walked to the car. It was pretty small with only two seats in the back and not even a trunk to be found. He got inside and strapped himself in. As the man drove out of the parking lot, Ezekiel couldn’t help but to keep staring out the window.</p>
<p>He couldn’t remember the last time since he even saw civilization. While true he didn’t get out much when he was just a simple farm boy, but seeing nothing both dense forest for years made even the highways seem like a grand adventure. The scenery change was pretty nice for him, also since he was back on the ground he could at least appreciate his surroundings a bit more without feeling if a panic attack was going to happen again.</p>
<p>Besides the feeling of freedom, the car ride to the farm was pretty uneventful. It was around another hour until he even started seeing farmland again. Just seeing it was giving him pleasant memories when life was a lot simpler for him. The scent of fresh crops in the air, horses running in the distance, and how there was only a house every couple blocks. Seeing everything right before his eyes had him feel as if he never left, but it all still felt so new at the same time.</p>
<p>The car finally arrived at to the farm. As Ezekiel tried to say goodbye to the driver, he went driving off before letting him get a word in. He began to turn around to see the same house that he grew up in, except it look a lot more run downed than it did before. The wood had some significant water damage, the wall definitely needed a new coat of paint, and the door had bricks under it, possibly to prevent it from flying open.</p>
<p>The land itself didn’t look too much better. From where Ezekiel was standing he could see that all the corn crops wilting in the distance. He took a small walk around to check if anything else was going better than what he had seen. First place he went to were the barns and animal pens. All the animals weren’t in the best shape, most of them looked like they couldn’t even pick themselves up. They were with no doubt being fed more than what was recommended.</p>
<p>Ezekiel began to walk back to the house, he honestly couldn’t stand to see much more of the farm’s poor state. It must of been terrible without him around for so long. The two possible reasons for this was the work becoming too much for the two alone or they must’ve fallen into some kind of depression constantly worrying about his state. If the farm condition was bad, he hated to see what their health was like.</p>
<p>Slowly walking on the porch steps, the prairie boy couldn’t help but think what would lie behind the door. Seeing your parents after being gone for so long wasn’t setting itself up to be a pleasant experience. He took a long hard stare at the door trying to think about what to do. As much as he wanted to see his mom again, he couldn’t help but to think she would have a negative reaction. Knocking the thoughts out his head, he gave a soft knock on the door.</p>
<p>He took a step back and gently closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Here was the moment he’d been waiting for and he didn’t even know if he was ready. He heard the turning of the doorknob, then the soft sound of the door creaking open along with a small voice. “Hello”, her voice came out as a whisper of fear.</p>
<p>She fully opened the door, but kept her body behind it. Only for a couple seconds later, she walked onto the porch steps with a very confused face and asked, “Ezekiel, is that you”? Ezekiel expected her tone to be scared or disturbed, instead her tone was confused and very unsure.</p>
<p>The prairie boy scratched his head before giving a response. He had no idea how he should feel right now, but it seems that his emotions weren't going to hold back the water works, despite his best efforts. He went right for a hug as he buried his head into her chest. His mother hugged him right back, she ignored the heavy sobbing and snot going into her clothing, she rubbed him on the back and brought him into the house.</p>
<p>Ezekiel was put down onto the couch, how it felt so comfy to be on actual furniture, then unleashed his arms from his mother as he began to look around the old, shabby house.</p>
<p>It looked a lot more empty than before he left, it could be some faulty memory on his end, but he felt if there was a lot missing before he left for World Tour. For example, his dad’s arrow and bow collection wasn’t hanging right above the fireplace and there was one less couch than before. Ezekiel hoped this change had nothing to do with him being gone, the last thing he would want was to be a hindrance to his parents.</p>
<p>The prairie took a look at his mom. She still had the same appearance she had years ago, the dress of sleeves and the skirt of dark blue, with the top being white. Her dark brown hair held up in a tight bun, along with her squarish face. She was practically the same, but something did feel off about her.</p>
<p>“Ezekiel, I - I can’t believe you’re here right now, this can’t be true. Is it really you or am I just dreaming”, her tone was a mix of confusion and sadness.</p>
<p>“Yeah, its really me”, Ezekiel went quiet for a moment. He had no idea what he was to say. “I miss you, it was so horrible living as an animal and-and”, the prairie boy truly was at lost of words just trying to describe the Hell he went through.</p>
<p>Ezekiel’s mom put her finger on his mouth and made a soft shushing sound. “ It’s okay, you don’t have to tell me. I’m just glad you’re back." As his mom began to hug him again, Ezekiel couldn’t help but tried to ask why they never came to find him. Though at the same time, he just wanted the moment of comfort to last longer.</p>
<p>“You probably had a long journey here. Perhaps you should go to bed, sweetie. You still know where it is right”. Ezekiel simply shook his head at the question and then proceeded to go upstairs.</p>
<p>His bedroom was nearly the same, aside from a couple items moved around, as it was years ago. It was a small room with a bed in the back, a study table right next to it, a book shelf stocked with a bunch of text books, and a closet with his simple farming attire. Before going to bed, he walked to the closet and grabbed one of his toques and placed it right back on his head, “feels good to wear this again, eh”.</p>
<p>Not even bothering to change his clothing, the prairie boy simply jumped right into his bed and fell right to sleep.</p>
<hr/>
<p>The next morning, upon waking up a beautiful smell hit the nose of Ezekiel and he came rushing down the stairs. He didn’t know whether this was from the heightened sense of smell he attained when he became feral or he was just excited because he hasn’t smell anything good in a long time.</p>
<p>When he went down to the kitchen, he saw a glorious breakfast plate on the counter. The plate had blueberry pancakes, turkey bacon, sunny side up eggs, toast with jelly, and a cup of yogurt to the side. The prairie boy just drool seeing the sight of the dish right in front of him.</p>
<p>“Mom”, he called out, “ who’s the food for”. His mom emerged from the basement carrying a laundry basket with her, “It’s for you sweetie, I thought you would’ve loved to have something to eat," she walked over to him, ruffled the little hair he had, and kissed him on the forehead.</p>
<p>Ezekiel began to eat the meal, he felt like the big blonde kid from the other seasons as he was digging into the meal. Sadly the food didn’t really taste like anything. Admittedly since turning feral he hasn’t actually been able to taste much of anything, probably explaining why he never had a problem eating the rats. Though he still ated it anyway. It was for the best, he heard the stories about the interns and he knew that Chris wasn’t going to give him much food anyway, so he had to stock up on as much energy as possible.</p>
<p>“By the way, I also snuck into your room last now and started washing all your clothes, I’m so glad you’re back. I’ll let you relax for the week, but then after I'll put you back into a work habit”. Crap, Ezekiel forgot to mention to her that he’s only here for a week before being sent back to that hell to be an intern. She would be so devastated to know that she wouldn’t have him for a couple more weeks, if at all, if Chris does something about it.</p>
<p>“Um, mom. Mind if I ask you something," Ezekiel spoke with some hesitation in his voice. “Sure honey, what do you want to know," his mom sat across from him holding his hand.</p>
<p>“I have to ask, did you and dad ever tried looking for me”, the prairie boy’s mom began to sigh then shift her eyes.</p>
<p>“Well, that’s a little complicated. We were told from the producers that you went AWOL and off the radar. Since you were constantly traveling they didn’t know how to track you down. We wanted to find you, but we didn’t even know what continent you would be on. We didn’t have all the money to make a world trip to find you. I hope you’re not mad."</p>
<p>Honestly this shouldn’t really had surprise him. Ezekiel guess it wasn’t a full lie since he was hiding without even Chris (possibly) noticing him up until London. But they also knew he was in Africa and they even brought him back to the island twice. They knew it the full time, those producers just wanted to continue his suffering.</p>
<p>Now he felt towards this statement was different. Its not like they didn’t want to go finding him, but it didn’t hurt any less than it should’ve. “ I guess I’m not that mad, its not like you could leave the farm”, the prairie boy tried to make his voice sound convincing, but he wasn’t even falling for it. “I can understand why you would be mad, it was a long time.</p>
<p>“Well, I kinda have to tell you something else, eh. You remember the host guy”. His mom gave an angered face upon mentioning the name, “Yes, I remember."</p>
<p>“Well, he told me that he making me an intern for the next season which I have to leave for next week”, when he finished the sentence, Ezekiel slid his chair back a little before his mom could make a reaction.</p>
<p>“Why would you go back to that horrid place with that horrid man? I just got you back and now you’re going away again. I beg of you Zeke, please don’t go. Just don’t go”, his mom practically had tears running down her face.</p>
<p>“I really don’t want to mom, but he said that he take me to court and arrest me if I don’t. Something me nearly killing him or something”, okay so he does somewhat remember trying to kill Chris, but his mom didn’t need to know that part.</p>
<p>“Well, this really hurts me, but we really don’t have the money for a court case. Just try to come home safe and sound. I really don’t want you though, I mean look at yourself. Your thin as a needle and your skin is still green. Just come home safe, okay."</p>
<p>The rest of the morning was mostly in silence. It wasn’t right for either of them to be in this situation, but it wasn’t one either of them had control over. Ezekiel went back to eating his breakfast and his mom went outside to do some chores.</p>
<hr/>
<p>The rest of the week went really well for them, it was almost like Ezekiel never left in the first place. Ezekiel was doing some chores around the house, something that he actually missed doing. Now the animals were getting a bit more proper care with him, but not a lot due to him only being there for a week.</p>
<p>Ezekiel also tried to go back to studying, but found it harder than it was before. He could still read English, but he was having a hard time comprehending the subjects in the text books. It would usually just take a couple minutes for his mind to catch up on who a person was, before he had all these books memorized, before having to relearn the rest of the information.</p>
<p>During the time, he managed to ask about why his dad wasn’t here, his mom stated that they divorced around a year ago. Apparently, he was picking up heavy drinking habits and he refused to go get help about it. Ezekiel mom said he’s doing a bit better now and will probably call him down to see his son again after the ‘internship’ was over.</p>
<p>When the car came to pick up Ezekiel to take him back to the airport, he asked if his mom could come with them to drop him off. The driver man allowed it, due to saying he was being paid by the hour. When they got to the airport, Ezekiel’s mom gave him one last hug before boarding the plane and then gave him his vitamin deficiency pills.</p>
<p>The next plane ride was a lot more peaceful, probably due to himself adjusting to a healthier environment. When he fell asleep on the plane for the second time, he didn’t even have a horrific nightmare this time. He hasn’t had any during his short time on the farm, so maybe that was a good sign.</p>
<p>When the plane landed at the airport, his smile vanished away. He still really didn’t want to do this, but it was something that was out of his hands. When he stepped into the lobby, he found someone holding a sign reading “ Total Drama: Pahkitew Island Interns. He assumed that was the season’s name, Chris never actually told him. Anyway he took a deep sigh, and walked right towards the dude.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. The New Recruit</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Ezekiel arrives at Pahkitew Island and begins working as an intern.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Ezekiel walked up to the dude and tapped him on the shoulder, “ I’m the new intern, eh”, he spoke in a shrill voice. The man checked his clipboard and looked back at him. </p>
<p>“Oh yeah. An Ezekiel Pinnington?”, Ezekiel nodded and the man gave a hand motion to follow him as they started walking out of the airport. The prairie boy didn’t really gave him any attention, instead he just stared down at his feet as they walked.</p>
<p>The silence went for several minutes before reaching the car, as they came to approach it Ezekiel broke that silence. “So, where are the other interns, eh. Are we picking them up.”</p>
<p>The man opened the car door then adjusted his glasses, “Nope, you’re the only one. Everyone else is already at the island”, the man barely even looked at him when responding and ended the sentence with a very visible annoyed sigh.</p>
<p>Beside the music coming from the radio, the car ride was quiet on the way there. This level of silence made the prairie boy uncomfortable due to nothing but the nagging voice inside his head yelling at him to get out of the car being the only source of a conversation. </p>
<p>Along with his stomach being in a huge knot, the prairie boy knew being back on that island with Chris was just going to be terrible. With how he made it clear that Ezekiel was a huge pest to him in World Tour and how the feral Ezekiel actually came close to killing the sadistic host, the prairie boy knew Hell was going to strike him hard for as long he was practically stranded with him.</p>
<p>A little while later, the car arrived at a smaller airport, compared to the other one the planes here were a lot smaller with a lot less people. “Hey, weren’t we just at an airport, why are we at another one, eh”. “This is a private airport, you’ll be transported to the island from here”.</p>
<p>“But aren’t we going to Wawanakwa, I remember being sent there by a boat before”, the prairie boy shifted his eyes towards the planes in the middle of his sentence with a worried voice.</p>
<p>“You’re going to that place, my son. That island was sunken around a year ago due to a fracking machine. This season is taking place on a new island called Pahkitew, which can’t be reached by boat”.</p>
<p>The word ‘pahkitew’ repeated inside his head. During his home school sessions, his parents taught him several foregin languages, even becoming fluent in 8 of them. While he had became rusty in his knowledge, he does remember the word ‘pahkitew’, though he doesn’t remember what language it durative from or even the meaning, it didn’t sound good to him.</p>
<p>The driver snapped his fingers right up to the prairie boy’s face to bring him back to reality. “Hey, you’ve been dozing off for several minutes. Get onto the plane already”, he commandly pointed his finger towards a jet just a couple feet away from us.</p>
<p>Ezekiel jogged towards the jet and climbed aboard it. Inside it was a lot more spacious than the other plane he was one, but was only due to how there were no seats and mostly small benches on the sides. By the exit doors, there were some parachutes bags right beside it, the prairie boy hoped that Chris didn’t planned to have him thrown out of the plane again or something to that extent.</p>
<p>The prairie boy turned the latch on the door leading inside of the pilot room, the person manning the plane had his back turned but Ezekiel had a pretty good guess to who it was.</p>
<p>Ezekiel took a small step toward the hulking figure and tapped his finger on his shoulders. The man’s head turned around showing the always stoic, but angered induced face of Chef Hatchet. His only verbal response to the interruption was a heavy grunt, where he muttered just loud enough to not cause an echo, “Back to your seat, boy”.</p>
<p>Instead of saying anything, the prairie boy quickly nodded his head and ran outside the door. Since the jet he was on didn’t have any actual seats, he quickly dashed to a bench and held his hands under it as the jet went up into the air. He held his grip to the bench pretty tightly to prevent himself from sliding to the floor.</p>
<p>Once the jet was at a safe distance, Ezekiel ungripped his hands from the loosely installed bench. The bench felt the least of his issues, what was bothering him was how memories kept trying to shove its way to the front. As hard as he did to think about anything else, only bad memories resurface, turning his face to a pasty red color.</p>
<p>Even before becoming into the feral freak everyone now only identifies him with, being on a plane did cause the prairie boy some distress, though a bit more subtle than now. Starting from when he was in Germany, he started to develop a bit of claustrophobia, he swore that everything was shrinking around him and became more desperate for hiding spots. One of these spots were in a decent size vent.</p>
<p>Spending a couple days inside the vent made him pretty sick due to a lack of oxygen. A part of him thought that this is where he should’ve quit and snuck off the plane without notice. But he shove those nagging thoughts down and let his determination kick in. Telling himself that all this would be worth it in the end is all he needed from preventing himself from calling it quits. In the end though, his gamble may not have been worth the risk.</p>
<p>As a distraction, the prairie boy starts wandering around the jet aimlessly. He basically was walking in circles while muttering to himself. He turned his head back towards the door steadily resting his hand on the handle, he wondered if he really wanted to go inside or not and risked being yelled at by an annoyed Chef.</p>
<p>For the sake of his sanity, he slowly turned the handle of the door, then proceed to make quiet steps into the captain’s quarters. While being yelled at the man wasn’t an ideal choice, it was better than being by himself letting disencouraging thoughts plagued his mind.</p>
<p>As he slowly crept inside, the smallest creek of the door had Chef’s head turned towards the lanky boy and shouted, “Don’t you have ears, I said back to your seat.” Ezekiel instantly panic hearing Chef’s menacing voice, but took a deep breath and walked right up to him. Trying to judge from the co-host’s face he couldn’t tell if he was somewhat impressed or upright pissed at him.</p>
<p>Chef gave him a loud sigh and grunt, “Fine you can sit with me. Don’t touch anything or it will be back to the floor for you”. The prairie boy agreed by giving a nod and sat right next to the vetran chef. The two look upon the sky for several minutes while the prairie boy tried to follow his breathing exercises with Chef giving him eye rolls over how loud it was. </p>
<p>“Do you mind, I’m trying to concentrate”, Chef yelled at the boy as his breathing got heavier, “ if I give you small, meaningless pep talk, will that make you stop that annoying breathing of yours”. The prairie boy readjusted his toque and responded with “yes sir”.</p>
<p>“ So, do you have any advice for being an intern for the show”. Despite his short stay on the seasons, he knew that the interns weren’t the best treated, even hearing that some of them were killed. “ Either plan out your funeral or prepare to spend a lot of time in the hospital. For you I would set plans for the funeral, Chris treats his interns worse than the contestants and he practically don’t like you, especially after that one incident around a year back.” Ezekiel made a small gulp at that, he knew that this was a punishment by Chris but the implied suspicion that Chris was trying to kill him was pretty nerve wracking.</p>
<p>“Speaking of which, how much do you remember of being feral, just need to check.” Ezekiel tried to avoid giving him eye contact when he answered this question, “ It’s kinda blurry, eh. I can remember some stuff, but not a lot.”</p>
<p>“When did your memories start becoming blurry?” Chef drew the prairie boy closer to him, forcing him to give eye contact to determine if he was lying or not. “ Uhh, I believe it was after you guys left the alien place, I don’t remember a lot that happen afterwards.'' </p>
<p> “Okay, so I’m going to ask you a couple things you were involved in and see if you remember them or not. Don’t lie to me, Okay!” Ezekiel nervously shook his head at that. “Good.”</p>
<p>“Do you remember being hunted down in Africa.” “No.”</p>
<p>“Fighting with Heather for the briefcase and falling into a volcano.” Ezekiel gave a terrified face and gave a quick shake of the head, “No.”</p>
<p>“Living inside a radioactive mine and giving a girl a fake diamond.” “A girl talked to me”, he spoke with amazement in his voice.</p>
<p>“Uh, yeah. Do you remember being brought back and then being kicked back out”, the prairie boy gave a small nod.</p>
<p>“Last question, do you remember kidnapping Chris and trying to dump in a pit of toxic acid.” A trickle of sweat fell upon his forehead, “No, I-I don’t re-remember.”</p>
<p>“You can’t lie to me, son. I have done integrations back in my days in the military and none of them got past me.” </p>
<p>Ezekiel scratched the back of his head and gave out a nervous chuckle, “Did you give them your cooking, I tell the truth if I had that.”</p>
<p>“You’re not getting out of this conversation that easy, tell me how much you remember of that.” Chef’s voice was demanding, giving the prairie boy very little choice about lying his way out.</p>
<p>“Yeah, I do remember, but not completely, eh. I can only remember bits and pieces of it, though its a lot clearer than most of my memories.”</p>
<p>“Okay, I think I’m getting somewhere. Tell me, during your time being feral do you remember anything that doesn’t have Chris involved.”</p>
<p>“Not really, eh. I have some flashes of things happening, but the strongest ones are about Chris.” This fact angered the prairie boy very much. Despite how much pain that sadist put him through, it some of the only things that remain intact inside his mind, when so much more had slipped away. “ Are you going to keep asking me this, it kinda bothers me, eh.”</p>
<p>“Fine, there is just one thing I need to know”, Ezekiel looked up to him indicating his attention, “What was up with that weird rap career thing, how weren’t you embarrassed by that.”</p>
<p>“All the magazines said that rap was cool, eh. I didn’t actually do it all the time, though. My parents didn’t allow me to practice it around the house, so I only did when I was on camera, eh.”</p>
<p>“Still doesn’t explain the over confident behavior, but okay. Um, seem like we’re about to land, better strap in boy because it’s going to be bumpy.” Chef overlooked the sky as he went in to search for a clearing.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Around 10 minutes later, the private jet had landed in an area without any trees surrounding it. The weird thing was that Chef circled the island at least twice and this didn’t even look like it was here before. In fact there were no flat land on the island when they were looking down from the plane, but it seem to pop up out of nowhere.</p>
<p>When we landed, Chris was standing 20 feet away from the plane. Wearing his iconic sadistic smile, he was ready to greet the two coming off.</p>
<p>As Ezekiel stepped off the plane, he felt a wave of nausea overcoming him. Just seeing that face brought up all that wrangled anger he felt on that fateful day, years ago.</p>
<p>“Hey Zeke, welcome to Pahkitew Island, your new home for the next three weeks”, Ezekiel just continue to angrily stare at with his arms crossed, “Fine, not a fan of the friendly introduction I see”, Chris’ tone turned less sarcastically pleasant, “Whatever, you wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t for your little stunt last season.</p>
<p>Now, onto my favorite thing, contracts. Unfortunately for me, I had to go back down to the lawyer’s office to get all the new agreements settled. I really hate going down there anymore, they keep trying to tell me safety regulations and a bunch of other crap I don’t care about.”</p>
<p>Chris pulled a copy of the contract out and handed it to the prairie boy. He gave it a quick glance over before the sadistic host went on to explain it. “This is your new intern contract, since these are different circumstances from the other interns, I had to tweak it up a bit:</p>
<p>First, The penalty rule: If interns break a rule, they are given a strike. If given up to three strikes, they would lose their intern job and be revoked of their credits. Situations where one would get a strike are talking back to me, showing up late for assignments, refusing to be my servants, trying to poison my food, claiming a lawsuit if you die or are severely injured, and a bunch of other stuff listed here.”</p>
<p>The prairie boy stayed still without saying a word to him. Chris showed clear annoyance from a lack of reaction by getting up to his face and saying “you are paying attention, right.” Ezekiel just nodded and waited for him to finish the rest of his lecture.</p>
<p>“Good, now to discuss the instant penalty. If given an instant penalty it means that you are instantly given three strikes and would be booted off before the end of the day. An instant penalty only happens when an intern interferes with the game. This includes rigging the challenges for it to be easier for others, changing the votes around, and creating ILLEGAL ALLIANCES, *cough* Chef *cough*”</p>
<p>“I haven’t done that in two seasons”, Chef defended himself. Chris gave a stare to him, “ Yeah, but I feel I have less reason to trust you. But back to the manner at hand, since you are here under an exchange, instead of revoking your credits and blacklisting you, I’ll just call the authorities and force you into court instead”</p>
<p>Chef pulled Chris aside and brought him to a place where they could talk in privacy. “ Are you sure you would want to call the authorities. Since you’re still under parole, they could easily open an investigation against you.”</p>
<p>Chris rolled his eyes and output an annoyed sigh, “ Frezekiel deserves it for trying to kill me. If he thinks he can kill me, than other contestants think they could kill me. I’m the only one whose allow to mess with these people, these idiots should weak willed enough to know to never to fight back against me no matter what I throw at them or how much I ruin their pathetic lives.”</p>
<p>With how long he knew Chris, Chef always got a little scared when he went into these little tangents every now and then. With every progressing season, his hatred for the kids only became worse and worse. Ezekiel’s revenge only gave him a special type of hatred that Chris couldn’t even bother giving to most of the other contestants.</p>
<p>“ Is this really necessary though, don’t you think he already went through enough. I mean after this he’ll probably be spending the rest of his life in and out of hospitals.” Personally, Chef didn’t care enough about him being an intern or not, he was just more scared that he would snap back into his feral self and go after him.</p>
<p>Chris ignored the question. All he did was make an angry sigh and walked back to met with the prairie boy who was currently picking his nose. Chef figured trying to talk any sense into him was going to be a waste of time and decided to not even try at all anymore and meet up with them by the jet.</p>
<p>As Chef walked back, the duo were already walking towards another part of the island. Chris was just discussing some other rules for the interns and their living conditions, while Ezekiel wasn’t really paying attention to him, as he gave more notice towards the ground they were walking on.</p>
<p>The ground felt hard, but smooth. The grass wasn’t really rustling against his legs, as more as it was flowing in motion of his walk. It possibly was he wasn’t used to this area, but something felt off compare to the terrain at Boney Island. That island felt like all the plants could infect you with an itching disease and were a bit rougher to the touch. The look was the same, but the feeling was different.</p>
<p>Minutes later, they were on top of a hill. The prairie boy didn’t even remember even walking up this high, perhaps he dozed off a little too much. His daydreaming was put to an end, when a snapping appear right in front of his face. “Hey, pay attention”, Chris snapped his fingers with a demanding tone attached.</p>
<p>Ezekiel nodded and Chris went on with the tour. “This is the Canon of Shame, when a contestant gets eliminated, they’ll be thrown into this thing and be launched into the air at a hundred miles per hour”, Chris started to laugh maniacally at that, “ Hopefully, they’ll all become shark bait.”</p>
<p>“But, where do they go”, Ezekiel spoke with some concern in his voice. “According to one of the interns who tested this, they landed right by another island only a couple hundred feet away, a little disappointed that it wasn’t at least a thousand.” Chris laughed in passing and gestured for Ezekiel to follow him.</p>
<p>Several minutes of walking later and they have reached the intern area. Pretty unsurprisingly, the area looked worse than the rest of the island. The section had no trees surrounding it, giving a lack of shade to be found. There were an overspread of poison ivy bushes around the tent the interns were supposed to live in, and lastly there were a hoard of bees just floating around the area.</p>
<p>“This is the intern area, isn’t it just fitting for you”, his tone didn’t give a sense of outputting any sarcasm in his words.”Inside that little tent is where you and the other four interns will be living at, however I feel that may not want to share it with you after putting one of them into the hospital”, the prairie boy tried to study the sadist host’s expression when he said that sentence. Was he happy because something else was happening at his misfortune or that some innocent dude was in the hospital, it could possibly have been both.</p>
<p>“Now if you follow me, I’ll show you to the main area of the island or what I like to call it the ‘pain’ area. Right now all the other interns are working on their projects before we start the season next week. The current project is to sort out materials that aren’t dangerous so that they can build their own shelters to live in.”</p>
<p>“What about the cabins, eh”, Ezekiel hadn’t been on the show long, but he does remember being given a cabin.</p>
<p>“They went down with the rest of the former island, besides we already went over budget with getting this island up and runni..., I mean getting the licensing to rent it. It’s very expensive to rent an island”, Chris said with an extra emphasis on the word ‘expensive’.</p>
<p>“Why did you say up and running, eh,” Ezekiel scratched his head with confusion. “I didn’t, now get to work before I change my mind about this internship.”</p>
<p>The prairie boy was about to run off before Chris had stopped him again. “One last thing, along with your other intern duties, I’m giving you an extra job. You’ll be in charge of checking all the confessionals for each day and looking over the votes before the elimination ceremony. Now GO!”</p>
<p>It seemed odd that Chris would giving the prairie boy one of the more important jobs over anyone else there. Than the prairie boy remember what Chris had said about the instant penalties.</p>
<p>Ezekiel ran off to the pile full of wood, rocks, pipes, and various other oddities. When the other interns saw the prairie boy approaching the pile, they instantly ran to the other side of the pile to avoid interacting with him. Even with his appearance looking more normal than before, they were still scared that he was going to attack one of them, like he did with Bobby.</p>
<p>Ezekiel let out a small sigh and walked up to the pile and started picking through it. He didn’t know what Chris specify as dangerous, so he just went for items that were broken or that didn’t feel safe to touch. Any items that were in good shape were thrown into a trash bag that the other interns had left behind.</p>
<p>After 45 minutes of trash digging, the prairie boy decided to take a break and sat under a tree to get out from under the sun. When he suspected that no one was looking, he pulled a photo out of the pockets of his pants. The photo was of him wearing that dumb Z neckacle and of him being ‘the Zeke’.</p>
<p>Ezekiel glared at the photo and carelessey shoved it back into his pocket. Whenever he tries to look back at that, all he sees now is that annoying wannabe who was trying way too hard. Looking at that picture just reminded him of his dumb predictiment, along with some anger resurfacing. After two deep breaths, he calmed down and ran back to the pile before Chris would’ve been able to notice him.</p>
<p>After several hours later, a bullhorn had gone off in the speakers. It took everyone off guard, as there hasn’t been any noise for hours. “Attention interns, your jobs are done for the day, go back to your tent and turn in for the night.”</p>
<p>Upon hearing this, the interns, sans Ezekiel, started to walk up the trail to that little tent that was considered a ‘shelter’. The prairie boy left a couple minutes later as he took in the peaceful surroundings. As only gentle wind hit his face, he let himself relax a little before getting up. He honestly had no rush to get moving, since he wasn’t exactly popular with his crewmates, something he had gotten pretty used to when it comes to people.</p>
<p>After the sun went to rest, a chill came in through the air and it was becoming darker outside. Due to him not knowing all the routes of the island yet, Ezekiel got up before he could become lost in the dark woods. By the time he had reached the intern area, the moon had already risen along with the stars.</p>
<p>Some of the other interns were by a fire cooking frozen fish and huddling by it for warmth.While they were busy around it, Ezekiel went inside of the tent, so he could take off his hoodie. Since how cramped the space look inside and the fact that everyone else was scared of him, the prairie boy went back out and tried to find a place for him to sleep that night</p>
<p>From what Chris had shown him on the tour earlier that day, it seemed that the island was a bit smaller than Wawanaka, giving him less options to find a space. If one thing he learned from living in the wilderness for so long was that you could make a makeshift shelter out of anything.</p>
<p>He went to the top of a tree closeby from him. He managed to climb the thing with no issue at all and got to a branch that was sturdy enough to support him for the night. He laid in a position where it was the least likely to easily fall out of and went to sleep until the next morning.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The rest of the week for him and everyone else went by pretty slowly. Everyday, they would go meet up at the center of the island, be told their tasks for the day, get them done, have dinner, and lastly go to sleep to repeat the same thing the next day.</p>
<p>With that however, their assignments were different each day. It range from setting up the cameras all over the island, beta testing challenges for the season (Chris took too much pleasure out of this one), picking up shipments, and even placing berries and all types of fruit on the bushes and trees. When the prairie boy tried asking Chris about this, he just always changed the topic and barked at him to get back to work.</p>
<p>Speaking of the sadistic host, he actually didn’t interact with Ezekiel or the other interns that much during the week, when giving out the assignments or having them test out the challenges. This was a little bit surprising to the prairie boy, but the other interns didn’t seem that surprised by it. Ezekiel probably figured that Chris was waiting for the campers to arrive or for them to be on live tv to start torturing them more.</p>
<p>While he still didn’t know the interns that much, they were on better terms than they were at the beginning of the week. Ezekiel went up to them and tried to strike a conversation with them. While the conversation didn’t go that badly, the prairie boy didn’t feel very comfortable around them and it was pretty much the same on their end. He didn’t sleep with them in the tent at all that week, instead he found some bushes that he got comfortable in, amazingly the bushes weren’t sensitive to any of them at all (while Ezekiel became immune to them, the others should not had).</p>
<p>The interns names were Lois, Jerry, Ted, and Tambry. They all wore the uniform that Chris had given them, which Ezekiel later realize that it was the same pattern of the host’s shirt but in another color, they all looked pretty different from one another. Lois had blonde hair, blue eyes and a medium brown skin tone, and a skinny body structure. Jerry was a tall, but chubby Africian-Candian wearing a long brown ponytail and thin mustache. Ted had an Italian skin tone brick house with short black hair. Lastly Tambry had purple streaks in her hair, medium length and also had medium brown skin.</p>
<p>The few conversations he had with them were nice, but brief. The person he actually talked to the most was actually Chef of all people, turns out he’s a pretty decent guy when not working. He told him a couple stories about his time in the military and about the best times to avoid the host. It was pretty nice to have a small companion, though he went back to his grouchy self when Chris came back around. He told him that they weren’t friends because of this, so Ezekiel did keep his distance from him.</p>
<p>When they weren’t working, the island was pretty boring to be on. Not that much had happened, there weren’t even any animals around to talk with. The most interesting thing that happened was when a one seater plane tried flying over the island, for it to be swatted out of the air by the trees. When the others tried to report that to Chris, he just yawned it off and said it was our imaginations or something like that.</p>
<p>After what felt like a lifetime had passed by, it was finally the day before the season had started. With this, Chris had gathered all the interns to a meeting at the center of the island.</p>
<p>“Campers, you are hopefully aware that tomorrow we are finally going to start our new season and bring in a bunch of new victims competing for a million dollars. Be aware that the instant penalty goes into effect starting then, and you will be kicked off it caught breaking it. Now get some rest, you guys and fourteen other suckers are going to go through Hell these next two weeks, so lets have some fun with that, shall we,” Chris went into another one of his evil laughs as he delivered this.</p>
<p>“Just be told that you can interact with the new contestants just like you could every season before, but its probably best not too if you really don’t want that instant penalty on your record. Okay, get out of here now, I really don’t want to see any more than I have to, expect you Zeke. You stay, I need to talk to you for a minute.”</p>
<p>The prairie boy gulped and walked up to Chris to see what he wanted. He tried his best to stay out of any trouble that entire week, so what did he want with him.</p>
<p>“Let me cut to the chase, because I have a spa appointment in an hour. Tomorrow morning when the newbies come, I need you right behind the bush where I’ll be filming and you’ll come out when I call out your name,” Chris gave this out in a demanding tone, but didn’t actually gave any eye contact with the boy.</p>
<p>“Okay, but why, eh”, Ezekiel was visibly nervous when being called out for this private conversation and he didn’t like whatever Chris had planned for him tomorrow.</p>
<p>“Because I said so and that’s all the reasoning you need if you don’t want a strike before the beginning of the season. Got it”, before he could have the chance to say something Chris responded for him, “Good.” Chris back turned on him and Ezekiel went up back to the trail without saying a word.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>So another chapter is finally done and this admittedly isn’t the best. It is a bit of a slow setup, but I can promise next time things will pick up, as I will finally introduce the Pahkitew contestants, which is something I’m really looking forward to.</p>
<p>The biggest things that came out of this chapter for me was the two conversations with Chef, one with Zeke and One with Chris. For Zeke’s it was more to establish what he remembers being feral. Zeke only remembers more about when it comes to Chris because of how much of a negative impact he had on him. </p>
<p>The conversation with Chris was to demonstrate that Chris kinda snapped a little when Ezekiel tried to axe him. He feels that none of his contestants should be able to fight back, no matter how cruel he is to him. The fact that even one did, shaken up his ego in a terrible way. </p>
<p>I guess that the other thing of significance was Zeke looking at the picture of himself and Chris giving him the job of checking votes and confessionals. The latter was for plot reasons I won’t get much into and the former was a character moment.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. The Island of Misfit Contestants</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>It's the first day of the season and Ezekiel begins to meet some of the new contestants.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Several hours before the season would begin and Ezekiel was a restless mess. Sleep felt nearly impossible as he kept turning on his sides to find a comfortable position. Sadly, the leaf pile he was in was very prickly, with some leaves slipping into his clothing.</p>
<p>He arose from the pile, wiping off all the leaves on him. It was still before dawn as the moon above shone above the sky. Since he was on an island during the summer time, the night was very humid, just adding extra discomfort to his lack of sleep. Along with some sweat stains on his clothing, there was also sweat coming off his forehead.</p>
<p>Instead of trying to fight a losing battle for sleep, he chose to take a walk down towards the stream to try to at least cool himself down. He picked himself as quietly as possible to try to avoid waking the others up, he wiped the leaves off his clothing and made a jog down the hill.</p>
<p>Within the week he lived on this island, he had gotten a bit more used to navigating the trails and hills of the area. The jog there wasn’t quite eventful as everything was perfectly still at night, it was pretty spooky to how calm everything was. This was mostly due to that Chris and Chef would return home on a helicopter after all the work was done.</p>
<p>After several minutes of jogging, the prairie boy had reached the stream. He sat down just far enough to prevent himself from falling inside the water. He steadily place his hand right on top of the water to let it feel the cooling sensation of it. When his hands felt cool, he repeatedly splashed his face until the sweat washed right off of it.</p>
<p>After patting his face down with water, he walked a couple feet away from the stream and let his body hit the grass. When on the ground, he curled himself into a ball and tried falling back to sleep, only for nothing to happen. He was awake, but tired at the same time. Despite how much he needed it, his body refused to give him the sleep necessary to deal with whatever tomorrow will throw at him.</p>
<p>“Uggh, why can’t I sleep,'' he whined. “Hmm, maybe looking at the stars will take my mind off things”, the prairie boy said as changed his position to be laying on his back with his legs slightly elevated and his hands behind his head.</p>
<p>Luckily for him, he had a perfect view of the sky. The sky was clear of clouds and the stars glimmered brightly. He tried to make the constellations, but astronomy wasn’t his best subject. Though, it was still pretty relaxing just staring at them, like it was mentally removing the stress from his body.</p>
<p>He should’ve been relaxed if it wasn’t for all the thoughts stirring around in his head. The new ‘internship’, the possibility of going to court, if he would make it off the island alive or unscathed, his conversation with his mom, and everything overall, Chris. Maybe it was out of line to tried to kill him, but it couldn't have been worse than anything that he has done over the years.</p>
<p>Technically, he did saved his life as he would’ve spent the rest of his days as an animal in the wild if he didn’t have his interns sent to Boney Island. He wouldn’t have been able to see his mother again if he didn’t give him the airplane tickets home. While Ezekiel should’ve been somewhat thankful for this, he wasn’t as all this was done out of spite.</p>
<p>Spite for the revenge that was long overdue. Spite for how someone managed to humiliate him on international television than it being the other way around. That sadist couldn’t do anything nice unless it benefited him, and the prairie boy’s humiliation was the price to pay for it </p>
<p>Ezekiel sighed as he looked up into the sky. Morning will come way too fast for him and then he’ll be facing something that he can’t even imagine how painful these next two weeks are going to be. His plan was just to get his work done and return home to never think about this show ever again. He had no plans to befriend any of the contestants this season. Why anyone who would audition for this show is a mystery to him, since Chris had made no attempt to hide his villainous personality on camera.</p>
<p>Several more hours had passed by and the sun was starting to rise. The prairie boy felt totally exhausted and just wanted the world to burn right before him with how tired he was. Bearly a wink of sleep during the night and now he had to the scorching sun burning right above him.</p>
<p>Before having to get to the center of the island, he went towards the stream and splashed some water on his face to give himself a wake up call. After scrubbing his face for several minutes, he began jogging towards the intern tent to put his hoodie inside of it before starting his first day of work. </p>
<p>When he arrived, he saw that the other interns were already up and getting ready for the day. Ezekiel made the decision to ignore them just to focus on himself being on time for the season.</p>
<p>“Hey, Zeke, where did you go last night.” Ezekiel cringed at this, he really wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone right now. “Uh, down to the stream. Couldn’t sleep last night,” before Lois could say anything else, Ezekiel jogged away from him.</p>
<p>Without taking a pause, Ezekiel jogged down towards the shore area where Chris told him to meet up at. When he arrived, Chris was already there to greet him with a smile that spelled worlds of trouble to come.</p>
<p>As the prairie boy ran up to him, his smile had vanished. “Good, you’re here. Now stand behind that rock until I signaled for you to come out,” he said in a flat tone. The prairie boy did as he was told and squatted himself behind the rock.</p>
<p>Ezekiel sat behind the rock for a couple minutes, only glancing up above it occasionally. Chris was just standing there not doing much besides from looking down at his watch visibly annoyed and impatient. Something finally happened when a camera man showed up and told him that there were a minute before shooting. Ezekiel listened in on the conversation.</p>
<p>“Good, now did you set up that holographic camera,” Chris spoke demandingly, “this entire setup would be entirely pointless without it”. Chris was now shouting at the dude, he really didn’t own patience for anyone.</p>
<p>“Don’t throw a hissy fit, the camera has been set up,” the camera guy tone showed no tolerance for his behavior. “ The contestants are about to show up any minute, so let's not try for a second shoot here, okay.” </p>
<p>“Like I would need another anyway”, just as soon as he finished this sentence the camera guy started shooting the scene and Chirs went into what the prairie boy guess was the prologue for the season.</p>
<p>“..... 14 spanking fresh contestants and a totally brand new location, a Cree island in Western Canada. As you may recall, during our heroes vs villains finale, someone, and I prefer to remain nameless, accidentally destroy our whole island.” </p>
<p>Ezekiel dozed off during the introduction. Nothing Chris was saying was surprising in the least. Casually mentioning destroying an island was probably just another day for this asshole, he never saw anything wrong with his actions. He also mentioned how there weren’t any cabins to live in due to the island sinking, which was bullshit since he managed to pull them out of thin air in the past.</p>
<p>“ It’ll be the roughest roughing it that was ever been rough on Total Drama. So buckle up, this is Total Drama: Pahkitew Island,” when given the signal that the shot was done, Chris went back to being visibly annoyed.</p>
<p>The prairie boy didn’t tried to give him any more attention after that. He simply kept sitting behind the rock waiting for his cue. When he got bored sitting in the same position for a while, he went to glance back at Chris. He looked like he was having a conversation with someone despite no one being in front of him. He didn’t even have a phone on him.</p>
<p>Barely a minute after watching that, the prairie boy noticed that there were people falling from the sky. Some of them had parachutes on them and others didn’t. When seeing this, Ezekiel felt himself breathing pretty heavily. It panics him anytime he had to see that again, even if it wasn’t happening to him.</p>
<p>As everyone began to land on the ground, Ezekiel took notice of their appearances. Two identical cheerleaders, one who looked pretty aggressive and one who looked timid, a dude in a wizard's robe, a girl in a princess dress, a short person with purple hair, and someone who clothes resembles Chris’. </p>
<p>Chris began to put everyone into their groups, everything with parachutes were put on the right and all the rest were put on the left. The names of everyone in the first group were Scarlett, Topher, Rodney, Jasmine, Max, Amy, and Sammy (Chris kept calling her Samey though). The people in the second group were Sky, Dave, Lenoard, Beardo, Sugar, Ella, and Shawn.</p>
<p>“Now before I give you guys your first challenge, I have two little surprises for this season,” some look excited about it, the guy named Shawn looked nervous, and everyone else seem apathetic about it. “Our first surprise is that someone who competed on this show is back for this season as an intern. Any guesses who?”</p>
<p>The girl in the librarian outfit, Scarlett, raised her hand. “Scarlett”, he said in a flat tone. “ Would this intern happened to be Gwen. From past seasons, you’ve seemed to like her the least, and well you don’t really treat your interns that well.”</p>
<p>“You would be correct if I went with my first choice, but then it came to me that there is someone even more deserving of being an intern. He competed twice and came in last both times, then became completely insane and tried to kill me,” Chris said that last part with full contempt, “ our newest intern is Zeke the freak.”</p>
<p>When his name was called out, the prairie boy jumped out from behind the rock and into the center of everyone. As Ezekiel revealed himself, he tried to study the expressions of everyone else. Some of them were freaked out, some were annoyed, and some were neutral about it.</p>
<p>After what felt like an entirety of silence, the very tall girl, Jasmine, voiced her opinion on the issue. “ Are you sure that he should be here, he looks as thin as a garter and probably as dangerous as an eastern brown,” her voice was in concern for the intern and admittedly in a bit of fear.</p>
<p>“Well, we’re settling a little deal. Besides, compared to the challenges this season, he’ll probably be harmless,” Chris said in a condescending tone followed by a malicious chuckle.</p>
<p>“I highly doubt that statement considering that he looks like a zombie. How can we be sure that he hasn’t developed a zombie like disease during his time on the plane and inside the mine,” said by the boy wearing an orange vest jacket and a beanie - in a tone that showed full horror in it.</p>
<p>“If you want to test your zombie theory Shawn, you can do so after the challenge. For now we have to move onto other things, like the second surprise. This season is bringing back the immunity idol, find this baby hidden inside the island and save yourself from elimination,” Chris exclaimed as he held it in his hand.</p>
<p>“Give me that right now. As the one who is the most evil here, I deserve to have it,” the purple haired boy jumped up at the host to try and grab it out of his hands. “Sure, have this one Max, the real one already been hidden”, the host bordley expressed as he carelessly tossed it to him.</p>
<p>As Chris went on talking to the contestants about their challenge, he gave Ezekiel a hand gesture alerting him to go away. He he started walking away, he swore that he saw Shawn giving him a deep glare as if he was watching him. Considering that he said something about a ‘zombie’ disease, it was probably best to stay out of his way.</p>
<p>During his walk back up the trail, he began thinking about the contestants he briefly were introduced to from a couple minutes back. They look pretty different from the others he barely knew back in his season.  There weren’t any wizards, princesses, zombie hunters, wannabee super villains, or anything like that back in his season. Maybe it was a bit of an act to get the attention to be on the show, why would anyone want to be on this show was beyond him, but possibly they were okay people with some odd habits.</p>
<p>His parents told him to be open to all types of people. He didn’t actually hate women, but was only told that they were weaker than men. During his time on the island so far, he thought about his parents a lot. His mom must’ve been worried sick if he would even return back. His dad probably didn’t even know he was there. Hearing that they divorced over some drinking problems made him feel all types of guilty.</p>
<p>His dad in particular, he was nervous about. Before going on World Tour, they had a couple days before meeting up at the bus, his dad expressed blatant negativity about the whole thing. He felt that his son would make an ass of himself and only humiliate himself further than back in season one. Ezekiel pleaded to let him compete in another season, saying that he can guarantee to make it farther, because he knows his mistakes from last time. He reluctantly gave in with a warning to not blame him if what he said happens, basically being the last conversation he had with him in years.</p>
<p>He lost his current thoughts when he bumped into Lois when returning back to the intern area. Trying his best to avoid confrontation, he gave a rushed apology and kept on walking. Lois didn’t seem to notice rush though and attempt to spark a conversation with him.</p>
<p>“Hey Zeke, how are you”, he called out, forcing the prairie boy to turn around to talk to him. “Oh, I’m fine”, the prairie boy lied.</p>
<p>“So what did Chris want from you,” he spoke pleasantly as his arms lazily hung by his sides. The prairie boy adjusted his toque as he continues the conversation, “Uh, just wanted to humiliate me in front of the cast, eh.” </p>
<p>“Well that sucks, but that’s Chris for you. Would love to continue this chat, but we both need to start greasing platforms for the new challenge tomorrow.” He ran off as soon as he finished the sentence, with the prairie boy not far behind after him.</p>
<p>When they reached the work area, only around six meters from the intern area, everyone else was already working on their projects for the day. They didn’t look like they had the time to chat, so that meant less awkward interactions for the prairie boy.</p>
<p>Work went on for another two hours of pouring grease on tires and standing beams, by the end everyone was covered in grease and sweat. Our attentions were caught off guard when a heard a pretty loud noise coming from the main area. Ezekiel freaked out the most about this and instantly went down to investigate.</p>
<p>Before he could even get down there, he saw what was causing those sounds, a bunch a running bulls. Not believing what had appeared right in front of him, he blinked his eyes a couple times to check if it was actually real. They were real and they were running.</p>
<p>It was extremely bizarre that a bunch of bulls were on the island the whole. The prairie boy didn’t see any animals that week, let alone any bulls. Where the hell did they come from and how did Chris managed to hide it from everyone for so long.<br/>After the bulls had finally passed by, Ezekiel walked down to check up on anyone down there. He hid himself behind a bush to avoid being caught and scouted the area. Nobody was apparently hurt, but it did leave a pile of rocks on the ground in an unorganized mess.</p>
<p>Several minutes went by and the prairie boy decided to book it before a certain host could show up and allow a strike on his record to occur. He successfully got back to the top of the hill and went back to work. He got some ‘where the hell you went’ faces from the interns, but decided to ignore them. Have they been working for Chris so long that they don’t question when they hear weird things or were they afraid of getting strikes, so they don’t, maybe a bit of both.</p>
<p>More time went by and the intern horn finally went off, indicating that they were off the clock now. While everyone else went off to, Ezekiel still had to finish his task for the night, checking the confessionals and votes. The prairie boy took off his toque and scratched his hardly bald head before going back down.</p>
<p>He went down to see Chris, who was in the middle of a phone call when he approached him. “I don’t care what he says, make sure he’s down here tomorrow. Okay, bye,” he angrily hanged up and than faced Ezekiel, “What,” he tapped his foot</p>
<p>“You told me that I was supposed to be checking the confessionals for the day,” the prairie boy blankly stated. The sadist host didn’t even look at him and responded with, “Just follow Chef and he’ll show you to the room.”</p>
<p>Ezekiel complied and went to find Chef. It took several minutes of aimless walking, but he found him on top of  a small hill. He was sitting on top of a tennis ball machine with a face of pure boredom in plain sight. Ezekiel guess that without a kitchen to work in, Chef really didn’t have much to do for the show.</p>
<p>When the prairie boy approached him, even before he could say something, he was ready to push him away, “What do you want.” Ezekiel took a breath in, “Chris wanted you to show me where I can view the confessionals, eh.” Chef stood up, rolled his eyes, and walked me down to the room without even saying a word.</p>
<p>When we stop walking, he opened a little passageway and pointed in that direction. Not sure what he should say, Ezekiel went inside to find a little narrow hallway leading to one door and nothing else. Inside that door was a little room that contains a chair, couple monitors, and a clipboard with blank paper. Ezekiel sat down in the chair, turned on a monitor and watched some of the tapes from earlier that day.</p>
<p>The first tape had one of the cheerleader twins, the one without the mole, she sat in the confessional looking pretty upset. She said in a sad, bitter tone, “This is so unfair, I’d auditioned for Total Drama to get away from Amy.” </p>
<p>Ezekiel notice both these twins from earlier. While he didn’t know about them, the nice twin did look uncomfortable around her. Ezekiel had some sympathy for her, but didn’t understand out of all places why she would choose Total Drama of all places to get away from her. Given his personal bias with Chris, being around a person like him was the last place anyone should be around with.</p>
<p>The prairie boy went to listen to some more. The next tape was with the bulking farmer boy. He went on with how he was only has his brothers and his dad, making him in charge with decisions. He followed it up with how love should leave the way. Ezekiel didn’t think too much about it, mostly because he didn’t know the context behind the tape.</p>
<p>He went onto the next confessional, the girl in the princess dress, and listened in on what she said. “I was a huge fan of Total Drama: World Tour…,” she went on to say something else, but Ezekiel wasn’t listening to that. He wonders what she thought of him, she probably found him to be some freak or something similar to that. He ignored that and wrote some generic notes about the tape.</p>
<p>He went to listen to more of them. Most of them wasn’t anything special, mostly just stuff happening in the context. It was turning to look like no was talking about him being here and if they were freaked out about it, until he watched the last tape, not including votes, for the night. It was the one who claimed that he had a zombie disease earlier in the day, apparently he wasn’t joking about it.</p>
<p>“What was Chris thinking when he brought that intern, Zeke, that’s his name right, onto the island with us. He could infect the entire island and I don’t intend spending on my first night here becoming a zombie. I must find before something happens to us all,” Shawn sat crouching in the seat with his knees hugging his legs. His voice was a mixture of panic and seriousness, something that gave Ezekiel all reason to avoid this dude at all cost.</p>
<p>Before leaving, the prairie boy wrote down a note stating that ‘this tape isn’t to be shown on the air’ and clipped it down with the rest of the notes. He entered the narrow hallway and opened up the fake boulder that serve as the entrance and exit. When back on the island, he noticed that Chef wasn’t standing there, but someone else.</p>
<p>Instead of him approaching her, she came up to him instead. It was the girl from earlier who tried defending him in front of Chris. Feeling a bit wary with a stranger coming up to him, Ezekiel acted a bit defensive.</p>
<p>She offered a friendly handshake to him, which he hesitantly accepted. “Hello mate, I’m Jasmine. What’s your name,” her tone was warm and friendly. “I’m Ezekiel, eh,” he shook her hand but paid more attention to his shoes.</p>
<p>She didn’t really notice his discomfort and continued on with the conversation, “So, what is it like being an intern here?” She was cautiously trying to avoid bringing up his feral state, knowing that would be a touchy subject to bring up.</p>
<p>“Uhh, could be worse, eh,” he said still avoiding to give eye contact. “Are you alright. It seem your skin went pale earlier today when that Chris bloke was introducing you to the cast. Does he intimidate you.”</p>
<p>To say that he intimidated me would be the understatement of the century for him, but since she had good intentions he let it slide with only a nod. “Well you seem pretty alone out here, would you like to come back to our tree cabin. You can meet the rest of my team, they seem to be nice people.”</p>
<p>Ezekiel asked her for a moment in privacy and she nodded politely. He needed to debate on this for a moment. If he went up with her and meet some of the other contestants, then Chris could tried to pull some loophole and use the instant strike against him. However, he did say that interns could talk with contestants, just not formed illegal alliances with them. Even ignoring that, he didn’t know how they would treat him, he wasn’t exactly a fan favorite competitor from the show.</p>
<p>As the prairie boy went to tell her no, he spotted Chris in the corner of his eye. Not really wanting to have a belittling conversation with him, he ran back to Jasmine and told her that he can meet the others, but had to leave before night arrives.</p>
<p>She nods to him and proceeds to lead Ezekiel to the tree fort, hanging up above. Ezekiel had no trouble getting up, being feral subconsciously gave him survival skills, and managed to reach the ramp on his own. Everyone else was inside as he heard chatting from behind the wood.</p>
<p>The prairie boy stood for a couple minutes when the amazon tapped him on the shoulder. “Are you coming in, mate,” she asked. </p>
<p>He paused for a moment. “I don’t know, eh. I feel that they’ll be bothered by me,” he said in a shaky voice. His discomfort was very transparent to her, she sits him down to reduce the edge off him.</p>
<p>“You know, if you’re feeling uncomfortable, you’re not obligated to come in. I would see why it be hard to interact with people after the things you went through the past few years.”, the amazon’s tone was so caring, almost motherly-like. After two seasons of people growing to hate him, it was rare for someone on the show to talk nicely to him.</p>
<p>“Thanks, but I’ll come in. It was nice talking to you, eh.” Probably for the time since arriving on this island, he smiled as he got back on his feet. “No problem, just come in when you’re ready.”</p>
<p>He stood outside taking a breather as he let the cool wind hit him. He had no plan trying to impress anyone there, just a quick in and out. They probably didn’t want to meet him anyway and the feeling was highly mutual on his end too. All he wanted to do was get this ‘internship’ done as quickly as possible and never associate himself with Total Drama every again.</p>
<p>He finally went inside the fort. When in, he noticed that nobody looked that confused about essentially a stranger coming inside their fort, perhaps Jasmine took the minute he was outside to tell them that he was coming in. Unlike what he expected, he wasn’t bombarded with insults as soon as he came in the door. Instead everyone was just giving awkward stares, showing that they were unprepared for this.</p>
<p>To break the unnerving silence, Jasmine spoke up. “Everyone this is Ezekiel. He is a bit shy about his situation, so let's give him a kinosewak welcome,” she patted him on the back as she sat down with the rest.</p>
<p>Ezekiel tried to examine the room as there are less people here than from introduction this morning. The small, purple haired boy was studying him, as if he wanted to turn him into an experiment. The cheerleader twins expressed different views about him, the one with the mole seemed disgusted by his existence, while the one without held a shy smile but seem too scared to say anything. The big farmer didn’t even look at the prairie boy, he was paying more attention gazing at one of the girls instead. The dude in the slick clothing gave him the face of a schemer, probably best to stay away from him. Lastly, the girl in the librarian clothing just gave him a polite smile.</p>
<p>The prairie boy’s mind was shouting at him to leave the room and leave them be, but his body felt frozen in place so it wasn’t exactly an option for him. He turned to look back at Jasmine, but she just shrugged at him.<br/>Ezekiel sighed and left in defeat, he felt if he wasted his time coming up here in the beginning. As he started to climb down, he heard the door opened and a shout of “wait” from a female voice. He climbed back up to see who it was, it wasn’t Jasmine because she didn’t have an Australian accent. When he climbed back up, he saw it was the cheerleader twin without the mole.</p>
<p>“Hey, I’m sorry I didn’t say anything back in there. I didn’t want to annoy my sister, Amy, she would’ve just told me to shut up,” the cheerleader dejected with a sigh. Ezekiel immediately recognize her as the girl from the confession tape earlier. He thought if he should’ve told her that, but he stayed silent.</p>
<p>“My real name is Sammy, not Samey, but Amy wants everyone to call me that instead. I know you’re name is Zeke, I watched you on Total Drama before you turned into that,” she honestly tried to say it as pleasantly as possible.</p>
<p>“Uhh yeah, eh,” he tried to change the topic, “ I like your smell, eh. It smells nice.” She slowly rubbed her shoulders as this question was being asked. She tried to determine if he was trying to tell a joke or if he really meant it. She answered cautiously.</p>
<p>“It’s just perfume, me and my sister wears it. She says that it coats my smell of sadness and failure,” she slowly answered.</p>
<p>“So, what scent is it ?” This was definitely a genuine conversation he wanted to have. She went with his instinct and answered then tried to leave before the conversation could go anywhere else. </p>
<p>“It’s vanilla scent. I have to go in right now, so I guess I’ll see you later,” she began walking back to the door. He waved off and said “Bye Sammy” before jumping down from the fort. She turned back and he was gone.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Once back inside, she rejoined everyone back in the fort. She was feeling a bit shaky from that conversation outside, since it wasn’t exactly a normal one you have with people. She knew that he wasn’t going to be the most social person, but the questions he asked was weird.</p>
<p>“What were you doing out there, Samey. Don’t try to embarrass me like that with you trying to talk to an even lower loser than you,” Amy rolled her eyes at her.</p>
<p>Sammy grunted at her. She wished that she could say something back, but never gained the courage to do so. Luckily for her, a tall amazon was going to have her back.</p>
<p>“Hey, there’s no reason to insult either of them. Sammy seems to be a perfectly fine person and Ezekiel is probably going through some stuff right now. If you keep with this auditude, you’ll find yourself being eliminated quickly,” Jasmine made herself completely fair with her statement and didn’t resort to the need of yelling to get her point across.</p>
<p>“How could you defend him, he tried to kill Chris before. The only good thing he could be used for is using him as an agent to get more information on him,” the wannabe host exclaimed.</p>
<p>“Clearly that will be an improper use of him. Now using his condition as a way to contain and utilize would be perfect. I can threaten anyone who refuses to follow me in my evil ways with that,” the wannabe super villain deviously explained as he rubbed his hands together.</p>
<p>“Um, may I leave here. I need to compose myself to follow through with a field study of the fauna on this island. The plant life here is radically different and it requires a study,” the quiet genius explained.</p>
<p>“Of course Scarlett, there’s no reason to ask,” Scarlett leaves and the rest continues their previous conversation. “ There is no reason for any of us to use Zeke in anyway. He clearly distress and the last thing he would want is request from a bunch of strangers. I feel its best to stay out of his way, understand.”</p>
<p>Everyone in the room nodded in agreement, but their nods didn’t match their intentions. Anyone paying close attention to Max would had seen him crossed his fingers behind his back. The others didn’t hold a straight face during their agreement and made a smirk as clear as day.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Ezekiel walked to the confessional to count out the votes for the night. The box had four slips that read out Beardo and three slips that read out Lenoard. He double counted them to make sure that there were no mistakes on his end. He barely remember the names of who were introduced today, so it didn’t leave too much of an impact on who goes home today for him.</p>
<p>He walked up the box to the elimination hill and carried on his way to the intern area to turn in for the night. Since it was nighttime, the paths were a bit harder to see things clearly. His path was easy to follow though, so there shouldn’t be any difficulties walking up. Or so he thought.</p>
<p>The prairie boy had an eerie feeling overcome him, there was a sense that he wasn’t alone walking the path. He told himself that it was just another intern working around the plants and trees, but that didn’t seem right as none of them worked past their hours unless assigned to. He wasn’t daring enough to check himself, so he creaked out a little ‘hello’ to see if anyone was there. The only answer he was given was heavy breathing from the bushes. Without thinking, Ezekiel started running up the hill as fast as he could, but whoever was following finally decided to make their move and pounce on him.</p>
<p>“Take this you zombie,” he yelled at him as he jumped right on top, catching the prairie boy off guard. He had no time to react to this sudden attack and just went with his first instinct to defend himself with, but as this happened he felt his mind go blank and temporary loss control of himself.</p>
<p>What followed was a sequence of punching, kicking, and biting as a brawl between the two had broken out.</p>
<p> Shawn was slightly taken back to how violent it was going to get, but kept pursuing his fight anyway. The zombie conspiracist went in for a kick in the gut, but the prairie boy swiftly dodged it.</p>
<p>With Ezekiel having the upper advantage, he tackled Shawn to the ground and hugged his inner elbow to his neck while pinning his free arm on his back. Shawn struggled a little, but eventually broke free of his tight grasp, jumped behind him, and lift him off the ground with his arms.</p>
<p>“I’m not letting you get to my brains”, Shawn screamed. Ezekiel only verbal response was to growl at him as he attempted to kick with his legs as a way to escape him.</p>
<p>Shawn struggled with the prairie’s boy weight and couldn’t hold on any longer, dropping him to the ground. Ezekiel took no hesitation standing up and starting to punch him in the stomach and face, coating them in bruises.</p>
<p>The zombie conspiracist didn’t give up and gave him an uppercut to the jaw, letting the prairie boy fall to his feet.</p>
<p>When the prairie boy was on the ground, he grabbed the zombie conspiracist lower legs and drag them, forcing Shawn to fall right into the mud.</p>
<p>When on the ground, Ezekiel jumped right on top of him. They were both being rolled through the dirt as they both threw scratches at each other. Shawn got on top and pinned him down, barely being able to breath. “Okay, you win. Stop fighting me, I’ll let you take me brain.”</p>
<p>Ezekiel finally snapped out of his black out and was entirely confused of what was going on. He and the other guy he was apparently fighting were both lightly bleeding and had bruises around their bodies and faces. He definitely looked worn out over it. “What happened,” he fearfully asked.</p>
<p>“What do you mean, we were just having a fight like a minute ago”, the zombie conspiracist said confused about how he didn’t know what happened a minute ago.</p>
<p>“I think my mind blanked out, eh. Why were we fighting?” Shawn scratched his head, unsure what to say. “Well, I thought that you were a zombie, you do look like one.” Was that really why he fought him, just the more reason to stay away from him at all cost.</p>
<p>“Well, I’m not a zombie, eh. It’s just an effect from being feral”, Ezekiel made his voice angry but calm. “I’m not feeling great about myself right now and wouldn’t want you attacking me again, okay.”</p>
<p>“I’m sorry, man. Its that I get so paranoid, I follow whatever instinct that would protect me. I shouldn’t have attacked you.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, you shouldn’t,” he muttered. Shawn was feeling guilty over the thing and tried one last attempt to talk to him. “Look, you were a good fighter out there and maybe I can help you improve without having your mind blank out. I promise not to attack or call you a zombie anymore, but you can forgive me.”</p>
<p>Ezekiel sighed and shook his hand. “I guess I can’t avoid you.” Shawn took the handshake and said, “Thanks, the name’s Shawn by the way. I see you tomorrow.”</p>
<p>As Shawn walked away, the prairie boy sighed in relief over this night finally being over. It seems that an hour went by, as he heard a canon blast in the distance. He ignored it and walked back up to finally reach the intern area.</p>
<p>He got inside of the tent to grab his hoodie and noticed a note on top of it. He read it and it said:</p>
<p>After The Challenge Tomorrow, Meet Me By The Stream - Scarlett</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Sorry about the elimination being the same in canon, the first few will the same, as Zeke won't take over the challenge plots too much. Hope everyone like the interactions, they were probably the best part of the chapter.</p>
<p>I know some people will be weirded out by the interaction between Zeke and Sammy, but this is part of one of his arcs of growing more socially. He would come off uncomfortable to someone he would talk to and some may not know how to interact with him.</p>
<p>The fight scene was the first one I've ever written, so it may not be the best written. Hope that I did okay with it, though.</p>
<p>Hope your excited with the cliffhanger, because I have a lot of plans for Scarlett this season.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. A Chat Between a Scientist and a Farmer</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Scarlett and Ezekiel Gets to Meet Each Other</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Ezekiel was getting himself changed for the day. He threw his hoodie into the tent and wiped the dirt off himself from the night before. The prairie boy had just survived his first day of filming and there were twelve more to go, these next twelve days were going to be dreadful.</p><p>He was still trying to process what had happened yesterday. He met three new people, who despite all odds weren’t nasty to him like he initially thought they would. Jasmine, Sammy, and Shawn all seemed like nice people, but the prairie boy doesn’t know if he really wants to associate himself with them. With Chris’ threat looming over him, he didn’t want to take a chance and give in to something that will screw him over later. On the other hand, it wouldn’t hurt to have someone after everyone from his cast ignored him for so long.</p><p>The other thing that was on his mind was that note written to him last night. Who was this Scarlett person and what did she want from him. It was most likely something that would end in his humiliation. What if this was a test by Chris to get him to slip up, he knew that sadist was watching his every move just eager for an excuse to haul him into court at any whim.</p><p>For the time being, he ignored these pressing matters as he had to get to work for the day. Their assignment was to fill water balloons with anything but water. Probably wasn’t going to be the hardest assignment of the week, but probably was going to be very time consuming.</p><p>He ran down to the intern area to meet up with his fellow workers. Lois and Jerry were already filling up balloons, while Ted and Tambry were finishing up breakfast. Ezekiel went to join the former group to get his work started quickly, since he wasn’t in the mood to eat.</p><p>The prairie boy checked the clipboard stating that they had to fill up two-hundred balloons for the day. The material to fill them up with included mayonnaise, glitter glue, itching powder, leftover grease, and a bunch of other gross substances. The other interns were holding their noses to prevent themselves from gagging over it.</p><p>Ezekiel got to work grabbing a pack of balloons with some materials to fill them with. He gave them a couple puffs to give them enough space for an opening. It was a bit difficult at first, due to him having weak lungs, but he eventually found a rhythm.</p><p>After blowing up and filling twenty balloons, the prairie boy felt his throat becoming dry and went to the water jug to rehydrate. He took a sip and grabbed another pack of balloons. As he approached the table, he was given a tap on the shoulder. He turned around and saw it was Lois standing there.</p><p>Ezekiel blank expression turned into a sour frown. He really wasn’t in the mood to talk to anybody, but anyway he faced Lois. Ezekiel narrowed his eyes and asked, “What are you doing here”, he sighed. “Just checking up on you. Seeing if you’re okay,”  he responded. The prairie boy scratched his head and gave him a half-assed thanks before going back to work.</p><p>Why couldn’t Lois just leave him alone. Ezekiel never went out of his way to try and chat with him, so why was he. Maybe he just felt bad for him, maybe he was lonely here too. Ezekiel did notice that he really went out of his way to talk to all the other interns, but why did he have to be included. The prairie boy wasn’t even given a choice to be here, so couldn’t relate to them at all.</p><p>He tried to forget about it and went back to pumping and stuffing balloons up. Unfortunately for him it felt like time was dragging by as he was working on this task. In hindsight, a lot of things seem to be going slower for him since he came onto this island. The only times things seems to be speeding up is when he’s dealing with Chris, which haven’t happened to often oddly enough.</p><p>After more time went by, he finally finished filling up the other twenty balloons. To guarantee he wouldn’t break any of them, he quickly brought them over to a basket where all the rest of the finished balloons were.</p><p>With his first assignment done for the day, he went to look back at the checkerboard to see what else was there to do. Besides filling and blowing up the balloons, the other tasks were to clean the greasy platforms, cleaning the outhouse confessional, picking up deliveries to the island, ect. To get himself alone time, he chose to clean the outhouse. He also be doing the interns a favor, as that could get very foul, very fast.</p><p>He quickly went to the service table, grabbed some cleaning supplies and a sign with the words ‘OUT OF SERVICE’ printed in bold black. He jogged to where the awful smell was coming from and quickly shut himself inside. He didn’t need to hold his nose due to his nose practically becoming immune to horrible aromas.</p><p>He felt glad for choosing to clean the outhouse out. With him being alone, he didn’t have to make any awkward small talk with anyone. He always tried to keep his words to a limit since he’s pretty sure that something may try to use anything he says against him. </p><p>The other reason the prairie boy didn’t want to converse with anyone was mostly a personal reason. He really just didn’t like being around people that much at all. It always forces him in the middle of attention just from looking at his ghoulish green skin and his thin hair line. It made him feel like a twenty-four hour laughingstock. </p><p>Scrubbing down the toilet had an oddly calming effect on him. It made him feel like he was scrubbing his troubles away to somewhere else. About twenty minutes went by and his mind became numb after a while. With only the pressure down scrubbing becoming the only background sound for him. He became ease at how relaxing it really was, it managed to melt the stress away.</p><p>After another hour had passed by, Ezekiel finished cleaning the confessional. The smell was only slightly better from before he started working on it, but it was the best it was going to get. He walked outside it, took down the sign, and checked his surrounding area to see if anyone was around. When the area was clear, the prairie boy quickly bolted back up towards the intern area before being caught by anyone.</p><p>When he reached the top of the hill, he checked the sun’s position to see around what time it would be. From it’s high position, it was just about high noon, meaning that the others were probably taking their lunch break. Since the prairie boy wasn’t feeling hungry at the moment, he was going to skipped out on it.</p><p>The chores that he could do were done for now, the rest was mostly editing and other technical stuff he wasn’t familiar with. Sadly for him, he had nothing to do with his spare time. He wasn’t allowed to check up on how the challenges were going and the island was too small to get much use out of it. For the time that the prairie boy had, he went up by the tent to spend it alone for a while.</p><p> </p><p>Before her turn was up, the quiet brainiac quickly left her post to pick up some bait for the pig. It would be the most efficient way for her to lead the greasy animal over the tires without using too much effort. Since their challenge has only began, there would be enough time to pick up something like berries and still be back before.</p><p>As Scarlett was about to run off, some raspy voice stopped her. “Where are you about to go, you have to stay here and watch me tame the beast with EVIL,” the purple haired boy said in a theatrical tone. She just rolled her eyes at him and ran off without giving a verbal response.</p><p>When in the woods, she scoured the trees and bushes to find something useful to feed the pig with. After ruffling several bushes and small trees, she came across a pecan tree. </p><p>“Weird, pecan trees don’t typically grow in this area of the world. Perhaps the producers invested in bio engineering technology to produce plants that are from otherwise foreign areas, but I have my doubts.” She murmured under her breath as she swoop a handful of pecans into her pockets.</p><p>As she walked back to her area, she began to think about the note she sent last night. The person of interest she sent it to, Ezekiel, was one she didn’t practically like nor hate. A controversial figure of Total Drama which managed to invoke some sympathy from fans of the show. Scarlett herself was not one of those who felt sympathy for him. He brought everything down onto himself just because he didn’t want to be evicted first. While Chris didn’t have to encourage his delusions, it doesn’t make the feral prairie boy any better in the situation.</p><p>She was really only interested in studying his feral condition and that’s it. She had read articles online about similar situations, but know she had a chance to study it up close and she couldn’t turn that down. If she got a successful diagnosis from this, it could do wonders into getting her into any top university she wanted. If that meant tolerating some asshole, so beat it.</p><p>Excluding Ezekiel, the quiet brainiac always had mixed views on Total Drama as a whole. She always hated it treatment of more nerdy people compare to jerks. Contestants like Harold and Cody was only used as pain magnets and nothing more, the other teenagers on the show would laugh at their suffering because society taught people its what they deserved. Nobody ever tried to defend them when assholes like Duncan would constantly pick on them. As someone was picked on herself for being nerdy, it always had rubbed her the wrong way. It was part of the reason she auditioned for the show in the first place.</p><p>Also the other big issue she had was the romance always taking over any other interesting parts of the show, especially that bullshit love triangle that took place in season three and five. How that prick managed to get two girls fighting over him would always be something beyond even her own comprehension. </p><p>Scarlett reached back to the tires before she had to take her turn. Unfortunately for her, she wasn’t allowed a moment of peace. “ Hello young lady, luckily for you didn’t miss your turn and got robbed of the chance of seeing me perform evil.” It took a heavy deep breath to keep her from just yelling at him right then and there.</p><p>“Oh how I wouldn’t want to miss you scare pigs. I am so glad that I came back in time,” the quiet brainiac responded with a lack of eye contact and a disinterested tone.</p><p>“Scarlett, you seem trustworthy enough to know my information without exposing me to the good guys,” Max shouted. Scarlett turned to his direction, “um sure,” she responded with a confused tone.</p><p>“Behold, my triumph. Isn’t it so diabolicallyreffic,” the wannabe villain exclaimed excitedly as he held out some type of helmet with wires sticking out. “Um, what is it,” she called out.</p><p>“It’s a helmet of evil, obviously. My contraption will turn any animal into an evil companion.” He then proceeds to show her how the machine works by testing it on a bunny, but unsurprisingly nothing happened.</p><p>After his failed attempt at being evil, Scarlett went back to waiting for her turn. Only a few minutes later she saw that the cheerleader twins were coming up to her. Just as on cue, she lead a trail of pecans leading up to the wheelbarrow that the wannabe villain was holding. Just a few seconds later, the pig came rushing inside, making her plan a success.</p><p>When Max was attempting to make the pig evil with the helmet, Scarlett noticed that the machine was unplugged, plugged it in and the pig actually started throwing grease at the other team. The quiet brainiac became oddstruck at this, seeing that Max wasn’t entirely moronic after all. Then as if a spark of lightning struck, Scarlett got a little idea in her head.</p><p>Popping a smirk on her face, she walked up to Max. “You’re not doing anything after the challenge, are you?” she asked in a professional tone. “No, why do you ask,” he remarked with a snooty voice.</p><p>“I need your help with something,” she responded with the clear attempt of not sounding sarcastic or insincere. “Evil doesn’t typically does favors for others, but I’ll make this an exception,'' he added very condescendingly. “Good.”</p><p>Spending a night with that man isn’t her definition of a good time by any stretch, but since he could make devices with very little material it would be good for the research she would need to do that night. Since Chris prohibited even having a basic cell phone on the island, having limited technology would be better than none at all. </p><p> </p><p>Right after the Floating Salmon team won their challenge, everyone went to the stream to wash off. It didn’t take too much time before everyone was cleaned off, or as clean you could be without soap, they all went back to their shelters to rest for the night. Well everybody expect Scarlett and Max.</p><p>The duo went walking into the forest, up to the trail leading to the top of the island. The wannabe villain was yammering about how evil he was the entire way up while Scarlett kept breathing in and out in order to keep calm. While she desires to do this by herself, she was forced to admit to needing his help.  “Now sidekick, its obviously clear that you need me, but what is this task about.”</p><p>The brainiac groaned under her breath, “our task is to do a medical diagnosis on the formerly feral contestant turned intern, Ezekiel. As for why you’re here, is that I need your skills to create some type of machine to analyze the data.”</p><p>“Oh, how devious of you. Using one’s illness for your own advantage is truly something that belongs in the name of evil.” The brainiac adjusted her glasses in annoyance, “Um, sure.”</p><p>The duo continued up the hill, mostly staying behind the trees to avoid contact with others who may have found their actions questionable. Wasn’t the easiest task with the wannabe villain’s transparent personality. Within around fifteen minutes, they were almost right on the top of the hill.</p><p>The two hid themselves in the bushes to get a better look of the surrounding area. With the coast being clear, the duo ran up the hill. Even with Chris being within bird-eye view of them, they managed to evade his attention. When they reached right outside of the intern area, they instantly noticed that their subject of interest wasn’t with the rest.</p><p>The brainiac facepalmed at this, she really didn’t have the time to waste just searching for him. Instead she went with the more begrudging decision, which also defeated the point of them sneaking around in the first place, and asked one of the interns herself. She tapped one of them on the shoulder and he turned around.</p><p>“Hello sir, I am one of the contestants for this season and I was wondering on the whereabouts of the green intern. Just to let you know, I don’t desire to discuss my reasons why, so please don’t ask.” </p><p>“He’s by one of the trees, he said that he wanted to be alone. I hope that you found this to be helpful. By the way, my name is Lois”, he finished his introduction by giving the brainiac a hefty handshake which knocked her glasses off. “Thank you, it was nice to meet you too,” she un-enthusiastically said. She picked up her glasses and ran back to Max.</p><p>That intern seemed way too happy to be working here, perhaps he was under some chemical influence. Having no time to focus on that, she grabbed Max’s hand and ran off into the forest to find him. It surprisingly didn’t take long for them to find him, he was sitting under a tree, pretty dazed out from reality.</p><p>Scarlett clapped her hands to grab his attention, resulting in him yelling a little ‘WHAT’ in shock. The brainiac stood right in the center of his vision. “I’m going to make this quick. Hopefully you are aware that a note from me has been given to you last night. The only reason I want to see you is so I can examine your condition to forward it towards my research. If you reject this offer I will leave right now and we won’t have to ever interact again, but if you agree we will start immediately and continue daily sessions for as long as I’m on this island. Understand.” </p><p>Ezekiel nodded, “I don’t know, eh. I think this would break my contract with Chris. He probably would count this as trying to align with a contestant,” Ezekiel exclaimed.</p><p>“This shouldn’t breached your contract as this partnership between us would have no impact on my game. Besides if I did end up winning the season, it would be a lot less satisfying if I did it through means of cheating,” Scarlett stated very matter-of-factly.</p><p>“I still don’t know, it sounds kinda risky, eh.” The prairie boy’s facial expression said it all with a face of wariness and fear. Even with this doubt from him, the brainiac wasn’t going to give up that easily.</p><p>“Oh well,” the brainiac started while turning her body around, “if you don’t care about having the only possibility to heal yourself of your condition, then I don’t care either. If I can’t convince you now, then I’ll never be able to convince you, so I may as well leave.” Her voice was calm with no hints of resentment in it, while her body language gave a vibe of disappointment as her back hunched as she walked further away from him. </p><p>Before she reached the bottom of the hill, Ezekiel ran down to her. “Wait, don’t leave,'' he yelled to her. As he came face to face with Scarlett, he was panting as if he just ran a 20k without having to take a solidarity breath. “I’ve changed my mind, I’ll go through the exam thingie with you.”</p><p>The brainiac gave him a small smirk, “I knew you would’ve changed your mind. Come on, let’s go back to the hill.” He groaned but complied. When the two reached back to the top, they saw that Max was already setting some equipment up under some trees away from everyone else.</p><p>“The stuff for your little experiment is over there. You’re allowed to use any of that, well except for this”, he displayed to them a little round device with an antenna sticking out. “This thing is only for me, as it would help me find that immunity idol and have control over the game,” he exclaimed with mechanical laughter.</p><p>Scarlett ignored him and began to set the equipment up. Once everything was up and running, she sat down and silently waited for her patient to do the same. As he sat across from her, she pulled out something that took the look of a laptop and used it to write down notes.</p><p>“To make things simple for you, I’m going to ask some basic questions about your medical history and hopefully try to form a diagnosis off of this. Question one: do you have any allergies?” </p><p>“I’m allergic to peanuts, eh. When I was five, my mom was making me a peanut butter and jell…. ,” Scarlett stopped him right there. She gave him an annoyed sigh, “I personally don’t need to know the minor details. I have a bunch of questions to get through and I really don’t want to be here all night, so just answer and move on.”</p><p>The prairie boy nodded in silence. There were something freaky to her telling him to be quiet and didn’t feel the need to push it. “Good, question two: does your family have a line of genetic diseases.”</p><p>Ezekiel picked his nose as he thought about the question. “Uhh, I don’t know. I’m pretty sure my parents doesn’t have anything wrong with em’.”</p><p>“Neither of your parents had to inherited in their genes for it to be genetic. There’s a possibility that it just skipped right to their offspring instead of them,” Scarlett professionally stated.</p><p>“Oh, well I think that my grandpa has some type of autoimmune disease. The last time I saw him he wasn’t doing well, as he…,” he was once again interrupted by Scarlett.</p><p>She for a brief moment took her glasses off her face and slammed her hand onto her forehead. “I’ve just gone over this with you, I don’t care for the story behind it, so please stop bringing it up.”</p><p>“Sorry, eh. I just thought you wanted to know for your research. By the way, what do you need this for,” he raised his finger to her as he questioned this to her.</p><p>“This collection of data is really just to add to my resume to better impress colleges to why I would be a valuable student to their institution. Also if I were to find the core of your condition, it could improve the medical industry as a whole. It should lead to all the hacks claiming that they’re still searching for the cure for cancer, even though it’s obvious they have it by now.”</p><p>After her little rant was finished, they went back to more questions. It wasn’t practically interesting, mostly stuff about what his blood type was, a family history of heart problems, his current weight, and other boring stuff like that. Every once and awhile, the pair was interrupted by one of the wannabe villain’s antics or Ezekiel being distracted by something or rambling on about details that didn’t matter. Around ninety minutes later, Scarlett was finished with recording data on the subject and gave him a handshake before leaving him for the night.</p><p>“This was a good start for my research. Please come to this area the same time tomorrow, so we may continue my analyzation of you. Have an adequate night and I’ll see you tomorrow.” She walked over to Max and they walked off back to their team’s base, leaving the prairie boy alone again.</p><p>With nothing to distract him from his duties now, he walked to the little bunker area to review the confessional tapes of the day. He checked the guide book that was right next to him to reference what he should be looking out for in the tapes, mostly things like swearing, tapes that would be considered filler, or breaches of their NDA. They’re were nothing in these batch of tapes that went against these guidelines (besides one of the princess girl singing), so everything was submitted for approval.</p><p>Next, he went to the ballot box to check the votes for the night, it was near unanimous for someone named Leonard. Which one was that again, the big dark-skinned dude or did he go home yesterday. Ezekiel shrugged it off. Seeing that the votes weren’t tampered with, he went off back into the woods to retire for the night.</p><p>Inside of the dense wood there were some rustling among the trees, but there wasn’t any wind around. Ezekiel didn’t give too much thought to it, as he assumed it was only animal scavenging around the island. The rustling sound kept following the prairie boy around as he walked further towards the top of the hill. The prairie boy stopped walking and called out to the sound.</p><p>“Would you stop following me, eh. It’s creeping me out!” As soon as he was done calling out to the sound, a silhouette came from right above a tree. At a moment instant, the shadow jumped down from the tree and landed right in front of the prairie boy. The figure in front of him was Shawn.</p><p>Upon laying eyes on him, Ezekiel gave the conspiracy nut a scream of terror. He miraculously didn’t go into another episode like he did the night before, but he did seem scared of the aforementioned boy.</p><p>“I apologize for spooking you. Its just that you look like a zombie from above and I couldn’t take a chance with that. Let your guard down once and you’re zombie chow.” Shawn stood in a defensive stance as he was explaining to Ezekiel.</p><p>“Why do you talk about zombies a lot”, the prairie boy questioned. Shawn was more than prepared with an answer, “because the zombies will come one day and I need to be ready for it. I wonder how people don’t spend their time preparing for the upcoming apocalypse.” Confused by the conspiracy nut’s answer, the prairie boy took a step back away from him.</p><p>The prairie boy scratched his head, “does anyone else takes the zombie apocalypse seriously, eh.” Shawn shook his head, “not enough people. Only my parents and I do, they taught everything I know.” Shawn stopped talking to ponder something, like if he changed his mind on the statement he made a moment ago.</p><p>“Well, I think there this one other person. She seem impressed by my food gathering skills this morning and she didn’t question me about the zombies. Expect that she’s on the other team, so I probably won’t get to see her much,” Shawn expressed with disappointment. </p><p>Since Ezekiel didn’t want to get himself in trouble for saying anything, he stayed silent on the subject and swapped it for a new one. “Do you like your new team?” Shawn shrugged at the question, “they’re fine I guess, well everyone but Leonard. Though, I don’t plan getting attached to them for obvious reasons, of course. Though, I did find them somewhere to stay, since our original shelter was destroyed by the stampede, not that it was going to last anyway,” his voice grew a bit in annoyance as he remembers the terrible rock tower they built.</p><p>The prairie boy glanced up at the sky while Shawn was speaking. It was transitioning from a duskiness blue to a pitch dark black. He didn’t want to spend anymore time up then he was right now, so he went to break the conversation off with him. “I’ve got to go back to the intern area, I want to be ready for what Chris has for me tomorrow.”</p><p>“Well before you go, you want to meet with my team, I’m going back to show them the cave I found them.” Ezekiel gave him a confused look, given he just told him that he didn’t care to get to know the rest of the team. “Just because I don’t want to get attached to them, doesn’t mean others can’t,” Shawn protested as he folded his arms.</p><p>Despite attacking him last night, Shawn was pretty friendly towards him. He felt that he should at least come to see his team for a couple moments. Besides, he wasn’t going to help any of them out during the competition, so it wasn’t breaking his contract.</p><p>Ezekiel told him that he’d be willing to meet them for a couple minutes and the pair walked to the cave. The two stood right outside of the cave, “so, I’m going to get the others. You’re welcome to stay inside to wait for us,” Shawn offered.</p><p>The prairie boy took one glance inside of the cave and instantly diverted his attention away from it. He shivered at the sight of engulfing darkness that seems to infinitely stretched from the inside of it. “I’ll stay out here, eh. It’s really dark in there and it’s creeping me out.” The conspiracy nut nonchalantly shrugged at him, “whatever dude, I’ll be back in a minute,” and Shawn jogged off.</p><p>As the conspiracy nut ran off, Ezekiel stood outside of the cave. For the few minutes he stood, it felt that time was dragging making every minute feel like an eternity. He really didn’t even know why he was doing this, he lost his previous desire to be around people anymore. It just felt that it was too much for him. The prairie boy hoped that this was going to be quick and he could get back to being alone.</p><p>Some time later, Shawn arrived back with a five other teenagers following him, three girls and two boys. “This place is really nice and will do better than a pile of rocks,” Shawn exclaimed to his team. The others reactions to the cave ranged from content to unimpressed.</p><p>“I can’t live in a cave, that place is only for dumb critters,” a girl with a country accent complained. “Me neither, you know how many germs lives inside a cave, TONS!,” argued the dude wearing a sweater vest.</p><p>The short girl intervened, “it may not be the best shelter, but its better than nothing,” she added in a calm tone. It managed to get the others to quiet down about their situation, especially the kid in the sweater vest, who went to instantly agree with her.</p><p>While everyone else was settling inside, the princess of the group departed from them to talk to the green skinned fellow outside. She tapped on his shoulder, “hello, my name is Ella. But I must ask why you look so terribly awful. Had someone placed you some horrible curse upon you that transformed yourself into a hideous creature?”</p><p>Ezekiel seemed more confused by the question than anything else, “uh, I don’t think that I was cursed. I kinda became green one day..” His conversation was interpreted by the angry country girl. “Look, Ella is already being a cheater by talking to one of the people here who doesn’t do anything,” she accusatory pointed at Ella. The princess wasn’t fazed by the country girl, though and still was pretty sweet to her while explaining, “oh, you must be mistaken Sugar. I was only trying to talk with this cursed creature over here.”</p><p>Sugar ignored her and diverted her attention to the prairie boy. “Wait, I know who you are. Your the fella who said all girls were stupid and then turned himself into a green critter,” Sugar grabbed Ezekiel by the collar, “well nobody calls Sugar an idiot while she’s around, UNDERSTAND!” Ezekiel too scared to speak, anxiously nodded his head at her question.</p><p>Sugar’s little outburst managed to catch everyone’s attention from inside as they came rushing out to see what the commotion was about. “Is everybody okay, why is there yelling”, she raised her voice in concern for the issue.</p><p>“We have the critter who called all girls stupid right here,” the pageant girl exclaimed while still gripping onto Ezekiel’s collar. The short girl sighed then nicely confronted her, “well, that was a long time ago. Besides we already knew he was here. Chris introduce him to us yesterday, remember.”</p><p>“Oh fine. But I got my eye on him,” she tossed him on the ground and went back inside. She reached her arm and lifted him back up, “I apologize for that. Kinda wondering, why are you here as an intern. I thought you were living in a mine or something?”</p><p>“Chris is forcing me to be an intern for trying to kill him last season.” She seemed confused by that statement, “when did that happen? I’ve watched all of All Stars and I’m pretty sure something like that would’ve been mentioned.” Ezekiel gave her a shrug.</p><p>She changed the topic. “At least you’re doing better now. You’d looked a lot worse the last time.” Right then, the loudspeaker went off, “Attention all Waneyihtam Maskwak, please report to the elimination ceremony.” </p><p>“Looks like I have to go.” She began to run off, but she then turned around, “by the way, the name is Sky. Okay, bye.” And then with the rest of the Waneyithtam Maskwak, they all went by one by one.</p><p>Ezekiel was all alone again and really had nothing else to wait for. He walked down the hill as the moon rose and met up with the rest of the interns. Ignoring most of them, he walked to the bushes and snuggled himself inside one, as he waited for the approach of the next morning to come.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>As you just read, a good portion of the story focused on Scarlett. I really want to give her some development as an antagonist, then what canon actually did with her. Just to let you know you’ll be seeing a lot more of her in this story.</p><p>Also, since I focused on Zeke meeting the floating salmon last time, it was only natural for him to meet the confused bears this time around. To be honest, I see a lot more potential more interactment here, than for the team. The Sugar bit was my favorite part to write, by the way.</p><p>One last thing, in this story expected to see more development between Sky, Sammy, Scarlett, and Shawn and Jasmine as a couple. I have a couple plans for these characters and am excited to flesh them out more. Also, that little all stars line is a little headcanon of mine. Chris was so embarrassed about being kidnapped by Ezekiel, he decided not to air the episode, but didn’t leave an explanation about Cameron’s elimination or why he was injured in the finale.</p><p>I had these chapters written and published for several months on Fanfiction.net. I was originally going to wait until I written chapter 6 and post it with the rest, but since development has been slow, I decided to post the remaining chapters now. When I do finish the next chapter, it will be published quickly, along with the rest of the chapters from now on. I apologize for keeping anyone interested waitng.</p><p>See you next time.</p>
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